White night

The plan was simple – take the train into White Night; start at the northern end of the city, head south, check out all the attractions we came across and jump back on the train when we’d had enough. I figured that 11pm would be that point.

As it turns out, I was sitting in Hamer Hall at 11pm, watching Ghostly Machines and not even starting to feel at the ‘enough’ point.

In fact, I had my second wind!

Only an hour earlier, however, I was sure I was about to fall asleep standing up.

Around 7pm, just before we left home, I checked my BGL. It was sitting quite pretty at 6.2mmol/l. But because I am an incredibly smart and experienced person with diabetes, two thoughts ran through my mind:

It’s warm outside – really warm. I will probably – nay, certainly – go low.
Don’t forget hypo supplies.

Fast forward about five minutes as we were walking to the train station. ‘Hey,‘ I turned to my beautiful friend, neighbour and partner in missing islet cell crime. ‘Do you have any hypo stuff? I left mine on the kitchen bench.’ (See? Incredibly smart and experienced with diabetes.)

I was fine – I wasn’t low. But as soon as we got off the train, I decided that the three kids’ idea (i.e. constant pleas) of slurpees was a really, really, really good one and would serve two purposes – cool us down and stave off any approaching lows.

Half an hour post slurpee, I checked my BGL and the sugary drink had done more than prevent a low – 22.1mmol/l. Nice! Really nice.

So I bolused accordingly and didn’t think about it again for a bit, in the back of my mind thinking that I needed to make sure that the correction bolus did its trick.

We meandered along the Yarra, marvelled at the beautiful lily pads and watched them light up as dusk hit.

We watched the Bollywood dancers sashaying to wonderful music as they floated down the river on a barge, flashes of light flooding the Yarra’s banks in pink.

And we stopped by the food trucks for a quick snack. It was about 9.30pm by this time and we were all absolutely killing it! There was no sign of tiring yet. And I was feeling fine, so I figured that my BGL was fine.

Next stop was the National Gallery of Victoria and it was here, sitting on a carousel in the foyer area that a wave of exhaustion hit. It was sudden – so sudden! I started yawning and couldn’t stop. My legs felt heavy and my head was fuzzy.

‘I think I’m fading,’ I announced. ‘How about we stop for a coffee?’

We made our way to the café outside the Arts Centre. My head was getting fuzzier by the minute and the yawning was incessant. My mouth felt dry.

We sat down, waiting for our drinks and I pulled out my meter. ‘I think I must be really high. My body feels like lead. My BGLs must be stratospheric!’

Because I am smart and good at diabetes, I knew this would be the case. My mouth was dry, my legs were aching. I knew that there would be a number in the 20s. I knew that I was going to need a super correction bolus and two litres of water to deal with the thirst. In fact, I thought I could probably just pull out my pump and give myself a few units of insulin, up my basal rate for an hour or two and then I’d be right.

Because I’m good at diabetes.

As it turned out, I’m really not. My meter read 2.9mmol/l. I grabbed the soft drink that had just been placed on the table, gave an apologetic look to the kid who was about to drink it, (kids of mums with diabetes don’t even look phased when this happens!), and skulled half of it.

I dumped three sugars in my coffee and skulled that too.

I wasn’t high. I was low. Really low.

It was hot, we had been walking, I hadn’t had a drink since the slurpee (about two and a half hours earlier) – all things I didn’t factor into contributing to feeling thirst.

Within about 10 minutes, I was buzzing again. The yawning had stopped. I was wide awake and sugar-fuelled!

We headed into Hamer Hall and watched an incredible show of light, sound and movement on the empty stage. And then walked along Flinders Street, the beautiful old buildings lit up like magic. We wandered through a Melbourne laneway, lay down on the cobblestones and watched the projection on the roof of a building. And we heard more music and saw more movement.

I checked my BGL when we got home at around 1am: 6.2mmol/l. Exactly the same as when we left home. In six hours, my BGLs had put on a show, fluctuating between 2.9 and 22.1, starting and ending in the same place. I still had a great night. I still saw some amazing things. White Night 2015 was fabulous – despite the diabetes show.