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I woke yesterday morning and it was a typical Sunday. The priority, as always, was a walk to the local café for that first cup of coffee and some breakfast. We all buzzed around getting ready to go and as I walked into the kitchen, I saw this…

…and this…

…and then remembered that I’d had a hypo overnight.

The splashback in our kitchen is purple tiles. I’m really not a fan. I despise purple – I think it’s tacky – and would much prefer something white and simple. To hide the purple-ness, I bought a Posca pen for us to use the tiles as a blank canvas to write notes, draw silly pictures, countdown to holidays and share things.

And apparently, I now use it as a hospital chart to document lows and what I consumed to get my BGLs back up.

Later in the day, I was scrolling through the photos on my phone and discovered that I had not only documented my BGLs and food intake, but I’d also taken photos of said food. Here you go:

I’ve no recollection of doing any of these things. I can only imagine what the neighbours would have thought if they’d spied me through the wall of windows at the back of our house shovelling down food and making notes on the wall. In my pyjamas. At 2.45am.

This is possibly the oddest behaviour ever for one of my lows. Obviously, given the quantity of food I consumed, I must have been feeling pretty shaky and desperate to feel that my BGLs were heading in the right direction. I woke yesterday morning without a hypo headache or the terribly high BGL that I would have expected as a result of so much food.

We got to our café and coffee and breakfast were consumed. Typical Sunday, with a weird little diabetes prelude.

I remember my first hypo. It was the week I was diagnosed and I was on the phone (old school, landline, not cordless) chatting with a friend. I was filling her in with what had happened in the previous week, pretending I knew about diabetes and had it all sorted out.

I started to feel wonky. ‘I feel wonky,’ I told her. And then I squealed. ‘I’m having a hypo! This is a hypo!’ I was acting like I’d won the lottery. All week I’d been hearing about these mysterious hypo ‘episodes’ and what they would be like. And now I was having one. For real. Woot!

I hung up, went into the kitchen and announced ‘I am having a hypo’. I was living back home at this point in time, saving money to buy a home before getting married. My mum appeared from somewhere and as I stood there looking confused she sprang into action, producing jelly beans, toast and my BGL meter. I just kept thinking about the hypo, trying to put into words how I was feeling. ‘I feel a bit wobbly. Kind of like I am swimming. No. No. That’s not really right. I’m not swimming, maybe I’m floating. Yes. Floating. Like a bird. But birds don’t float, do they? No they fly. But I’m not flying…..’

This need to verbalise how I feel is not unusual, but it was sending mum into a slight panic as she handed me one jelly bean at a time to eat, trying to get me to focus on the glucose I needed to consume rather than delivering a speech on ‘what a low feels like’.

Today, I’ve had more than my share of hypos and I am no longer excited about them. In fact, that excitement lasted all of about a day and a half, after which I decided that they were a pain in the arse and that I wouldn’t be having any more of them. Ha – so sweet and innocent.

Lows have changed over my 16 years of diabetes. They went from being very easy to manage, to slightly less pleasant.  I discovered that they also have different personalities – stubborn, teary, angry, irrational, denial, giggly and (in true seven dwarfs style), grumpy.

And then there is just plain foggy.

Early Sunday morning, I woke with the familiar low feeling and half asleep, reached over for the jar of jelly snakes on my bedside table and ate a few. As I was waiting for my BGLs to return to a reasonable level, and for the shaking to stop, I thought I’d check Facebook and Twitter. What else to do at that time of the morning? There would surely be someone on line to chat with.

Hypos can be a learning experience. Here is what I learnt. My pump does not have the Facebook app on it. Nor Twitter. It took me about five minutes to realise this. I looked at the menu, pressed the ‘ok’ button, searched, went back to the main menu, searched, all the while wondering where the little social media icons were so I could get online and find someone to tell about my hypo (some things never change, it seems).

It took a while – and probably an increase of a few mmol/l before I gave up. And went back to sleep.

It wasn’t until the morning when I woke up and noticed the lid off the lolly jar, a rogue jelly snake under my pillow and my pump still in my hand that I realised what I’d done.

The foggy hypos are often the ones that have me rolling my eyes and feeling like an idiot. But surely, surely, I’m not the only one who does silly things whilst low. Am I?

I’m a little worse for wear this morning. I’d like to say it is because I was being incredibly patriotic, had set my alarm and got up to watch the Socceroos play the Netherlands. Alas, it was a perfectly timed low that saw me tweeting this just as the game was kicking off:

I thought that Jasper’s effort a few weeks ago when he woke me from a hypo was a one off thing. Not so much! Last night, he woke me twice.

The first time, I was dozing in and out of sleep when I felt something on my arm. There was Jasper, tapping me and watching me and straight away, I knew I was low. I got up and, as I often do so as not to wake the house, took my hypo and jellybeans into the front room. As I munched away, I checked to see what was going on in the Twitterverse. The latest tweet in my feed was from someone announcing the game was just starting, so I turned it the TV just in time to see the start. And then sent out a few tweets.

After I treated, because ‘treat before you tweet’.

I started watching the game, chatting on Twitter to some Aussie DOC-ers who were also up and watching. At some point, I fell asleep in front of the game. The next thing I knew, I felt Jasper’s paws again. I opened my eyes and registered that the game was 73 minutes in. I registered the score was 2-3 with the Socceroos down a goal. I then registered that I was low again.

In both cases my BGL was in the mid 3s. Jasper had woken me before the hypos turned too nasty. I think that in both cases, my BG was just getting to that level. The lows were easy to treat – both times responding quickly to the handful of jellybeans I threw down.

I’m tired this morning, but I don’t feel like I have a hypo hangover, which often follows after a particularly stubborn, persistent low. I don’t have a headache either. And I haven’t rebounded – possibly because I treated promptly and didn’t over-treat – a characteristic of many overnight hypos.

I’ve no idea what it is that is setting Jasper off. He’s 11 years old next month and it’s only in the last few months that this has happened. I don’t talk in my sleep when I am low and I don’t toss and turn any more than usual. But there is something that is alerting this gorgeous little puppy dog and he is responding by waking me.

Today, he will be rewarded with some doggy-treats. And extra hugs.

All in all, a rather uneventful, but tiring night. Pity about the final score.

First of many cuddles for today for the wonderdog (excuse my pjs).

Sometimes we all need a little Harry Potter magic to help with diabetes. Just try to avoid the earwax flavoured ones….