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We have two dogs and one cat. They are fluffy, cute and very much part of our family. And while I like to think that they are wonder animals, they’re really not. Bella, the Maltese/poodle cross used to sleep under the coffee table and every time she woke up, hit her head. She did this for three years. Until we got rid of the coffee table. Jasper, who is getting old now, has only one thing on his mind – food. He’ll eat anything, including the green leaves at the top of a strawberry and the watermelon rind. Cherry the cat is, as most cats, quite brilliant, and manages her staff (the three humans of the house) in typical cat aloofness with a side of purring cuddles thrown in so we remember how much we love her.
Gorgeous? Yes. Smart? Not so much.
For years of I’ve heard stories of dogs and cats that can sense if their owners’ BGL is dropping. Clever hypo alert dogs are being used by people with impaired hypo awareness to notify them of undetected lows. I’d read these stories. And then think of our little pets whose skills don’t go much beyond sleeping, eating and looking cute. I was resigned to the fact that none of our pets would save me in a sticky situation. Except, I think that the other night, Jasper may have done just that.
Until recently, Jasper slept at the end of the bed. A new, higher mattress and his old age have meant that jumping up was becoming harder and harder. Instead of effortlessly leaping up, he would run from side to side of the bed, front paws on the mattress, his boofy head popping up, looking a little like a meerkat as he waited for one of the humans to lift him up. After getting sick and tired of this routine, we bought him a bed and he now sleeps in a corner of the room.
The other night, I put myself to bed early and promptly fell asleep. After about an hour, I stirred because Jasper was doing his meerkat impersonation, but only on my side of the bed. Suddenly I felt him gently tapping at me. I told him to leave me alone and go back to his bed. But he refused. Dozing in and out of sleep, I could feel his paw on my arm and then he stared whining.
Finally, wide awake and annoyed at being woken, I started to get out of bed, thinking he needed to be let out or wanted his water bowl filled. As soon as I stood up, it hit me. I was low. Really low. I slumped back on the bed and grabbed the lolly jar from the bedside table and threw down a handful of jelly snakes. Jasper sat down at my feet, watching me earnestly. As I started to feel a little less woozy and could sense my BGLs coming up, Jasper padded back over to his bed, got himself comfortable and fell back asleep.
I ate a couple more jelly snakes and checked my BGL. It was back in range. I could hear him snoring gently in his corner and ten minutes later, as I started falling back asleep, I thought that maybe he is a wonderdog after all.
Jasper the Wonderdog
How often do you ask for help because of your diabetes? Yesterday at work, I had a hypo that just wouldn’t quit. I ate the equivalent of the weight of a tram/rhino in jelly beans. It worked eventually, but for a long time I was hovering around the 3.0mmol/l mark, anxiously checking every 10 minutes to see if there was any increase in my BGL, while at the same time waiting for the inevitable spike (yep – came two hours later in the form of a lovely 26.5mmol/l. #DuckingFiabetes).
So, did I call out to anyone and ask for their help? Did I request someone come and sit with me for a bit – at least for the part where I was seriously wondering if standing was a good idea? Nope. Instead, I fought through, guzzling glucose, sitting in meetings, smiling my way through. Anytime I saw someone and they asked ‘How are you?’ did I say ‘Low, low, low, low’? Nope. I said ‘I’m fine, thanks’ and threw them what I thought was a winning smile, but given my hypo state was most likely a lopsided grimace.
I’m not good at asking for help. The one hypo I’ve had that required an ambulance occurred when I was walking around the park one evening with a dear friend. She noticed me throwing down a handful of the jelly beans I carry with me whenever we walk and casually asked if I was okay. ‘Yep – all good’ I said and we continued powering away. Her concern grew as I started shovelling the jelly beans down and became distracted, but every time she asked if I was okay or if we needed to stop, I’d smile and tell her all was fine and that the glucose would start working shortly. Even as the sweat started to drench me and I felt my legs start to turn to liquid, I swore that all was okay. At no point did I say to her that I was concerned that I was about to pass out. At no point did I tell her that I thought I was not going to make it back to her apartment. ‘I’m fine.’ I said. Over and over and over. Until I wasn’t and the next thing I remember was waking up on her the floor of her apartment with a paramedic about to shove a dextrose IV into my right arm.
On those occasions where I have needed help, I’ve been left feeling beaten. I vow to step things up and not let diabetes win again. But is it a matter of diabetes winning? Perhaps this ridiculous doggedness to insist that ‘I’m fine’ is actually doing more harm than good. Would it have been so terrible if yesterday I had said to a colleague ‘I am having trouble getting my BGLs up. If I have to eat another jelly bean I’m going to vomit. Would you mind at all finding me some juice to drink?’ Would they have thought any less of me; seen me as helpless; decided that I was losing to diabetes?
Of course not. But this isn’t about what others think. I need to feel that I can do this on my own. I don’t want the burden of my condition to become my family’s burden. I don’t want to acknowledge that diabetes is changing and that what worked in the first decade and a half is perhaps not going to now. I need to believe that I am fine; that I’m going to be fine. Really. I’m fine.
Hypo Boy (AKA Spike Beecroft) is back with what I hope will be his first of many 2014 posts for Diabetogenic. Here, he shares some of his hypo stories. Thanks mate!
Hypos, like taxes, Christmas and birthdays happen. You can try hard to avoid them but eventually the sneaky buggers find you out and drop you to the floor, slug you for dollars, make you have to suffer the indignity of shopping or remind you that your age-growth may have out stripped your wisdom-growth. The main point is to keep calm and carry on.
Hypo Boy probably has had a slightly alarming number of hypos over his life time, but he’s not dead yet and he’s getting better at staying upright. Here he shares some of the funnier aspects of hypos.
Hypos affect your brain. What was once an instrument of sharpened surgical steel, able to slice through complex problems of logic may struggle with simple ideas. Such as the concept of a cupboard or door and the hypo fixes that live behind them.
Hypo Boy (HB): I need the stuff that’s in the thing…. You know the thing (mime show of cupboard door opening).
Better Half (BH): You what?
HB: I need the stuff that helps me. It’s in the packet in the place with the thing (more miming).
BH: Are you okay? Hypo Boy you’re really low, aren’t you?
HB: That’s what I’m telling you! I need the stuff that helps me. It’s in the place with the thing (more miming).
BH: Okay, you’re really low Hypo Boy. Now tell me where your snakes are.
HB: (exasperated) In the place with the thing. I can’t remember what it’s called but it goes like this (mime) and looks like that (points to door). But it’s smaller.
BH: Just wait here. I’ll look in the cupboard and see what’s there that might help.
HB: Cupboard! That’s it! The snakes are in the cupboard!
Even if the surgical steel is only moderately rusted it still might not quite hit the mark.
BH: (on waking to hear HB in the kitchen) What are you doing Hypo Boy?
HB: I’m low. I’m just getting something to eat.
BH: (turning the lights on in the kitchen) What are you doing?
HB: I’m low. I’m just getting something to eat, then I’ll come back to bed.
BH: Is roast beef good for hypos? (Hypo boy was busy carving and eating left over roast beef. It was delicious in his defence.)
Hypos can also impact those around you. While that may seem obvious, occasionally you do get an odd ball one. For a long time while dating a young women, Hypo Boy had fallen into a disturbing routine during moments of intimacy:
i) Amorous activities (details withheld to maintain the mystery and allure);
ii) Hypo;
iii) Amorous-activity-interruptus walk to 24-hour Coles for hypo fix; return home for fix and talk before….
iv) Return to complete point (i)
After a while, point (ii) began to interrupt point (i) too much. Hypo Boy made some dose adjustments without informing his partner, so that when they started on point (i), he managed to skip points (ii) and (iii). Hypo Boy was happy, and if he was a bit more Gallic would have lit up a cigarette.
Hypo Boy’s partner, rather than being happy about the new arrangement, started to question why.
‘Wasn’t I energetic enough? Do we need to do something different? Why didn’t I give you a hypo with my young, fit, flexible and nubile body?’ (Some dialogue may have been adjusted for writer’s own benefit.)
Hypo Boy learnt a number of lessons that night:
(a) Let people around you know when you’re making dosage adjustments. It’s helpful if they know there could be a reason for a change in routine.
(b) DO NOT laugh at a young woman who is questioning her performance. She might not let you play with her toys for a while.
Sound advice, Hypo Boy, sound advice. Sometimes you just gotta laugh. Do you have any amusing hypo stories to share?
This is the story of Hypo Boy who, when not being a superhero, is the fabulous Spike Beecroft. I’ve known Spike for quite some time, and his incredibly amusing anecdotes about his life with diabetes never fail to have me in fits of laughter. This is a classic Hypo Boy tale that has been shared many times before. Recently, it appeared again on my Facebook page, and I asked Spike to guest blog and write about it here so you could all enjoy. Take it away, Hypo Boy…
People with diabetes are super human in lots of ways. We do the little bit extra that others just can’t do. Sure it’s not flying or shooting laser beams but it is a little extraordinary, and when you’re in hypo zone, that ‘super-ness’ can overwhelm your brain and give you powers you didn’t know you had; in fact it can give you powers you don’t actually have but you become convinced they’re there. My inner and very confused superhero is Hypo-Boy.
There are a number of things we all have to do in life that are stressful. Some we can manage to avoid with very little effort, like speaking in public or getting married. One stressful occasion that is difficult to avoid is moving house. Even if you opt to stay with your parents for your life at some point they will move to avoid you.
Stress does strange things to PWD and stressful situations confuse your finely-tuned spider sense of what’s going on with your finely-tuned and gym-trained body. If you’re hypo unaware and under massive stress and your gym routine consists of only riding a bike (you’ve seen those guys – they’re all legs and bits of string from their shoulders instead of arms) then moving house is a disaster waiting to happen.
The fateful day had arrived and I’d started the long and very strenuous task of packing up the house into boxes, loading said boxes into the truck and then transporting them to their next destination. Being an engineer and a logical person with type 1, I decided to start working from the back of the house and move forward. It was a clear and concise plan that involved the placement of items in the truck with regard given to weight, size, ease of load and unload. It was a perfect plan.
Then I started moving stuff.
It was going well – I was ahead of my predetermined plan, boxes where moving, I had a rhythm, I didn’t have time to test, I stumbled occasionally due to the weight/size of the stuff I was moving, the sweat on my brow was what they talked about in VB ads. I was THE MAN.
Hypo Boy knows one thing and he knows it well – Hypo boy knows when he’s low and everyone else are retards of the highest order. In retrospect the stumbling was due to being low and not being super co-ordinated; the sweat was from being low. But I was on schedule and I do like the odd VB.
The last item to be moved from the room was a big white couch. It’s a three person couch – one of those things that’s not super heavy, but is awkward to manoeuvre. It’s really a two-person job, but Hypo Boy can convince you (and himself) of many things including that he is THE MAN and that physics and ergonomics are fantasies. And also that the fuzzy vision and misjudging the size of items is just from the stinging of man-sweat.
Hypo Boy decided that the most efficient way to manoeuvre the couch out of the room was to tip it vertically and slide it on one end through the doorway. Lifting couch vertically and sliding couch on the fabric side across floorboards couldn’t be easier. Hypo Boy’s brain knows its stuff. This was going to work. Perfectly! Or until it’s halfway through the door and perfectly jammed in the door jamb.
Whilst a couch on its side does slide nicely across a polished timber floor, a vertically arranged couch with its back facing you, jammed in a doorframe provides almost nothing to grip on and use to push either forwards or to pull back on to reverse the operation.
After a few tries at various methods to move the couch, the sudden and very real feeling of weakness that comes from realising that you’re low hit. , And I realised I was not just low, but orange-box-NOW kind of low. Hypo boy had deserted me; taking with him his strength and mental clarity and leaving me stuck in a room with no hope of escape because I’d successfully stuck a couch in the only exit.
A real feeling of fear as I desperately tried to un-jam the couch and get to the hypo fix. But when you’re really low the ability to open a Mars Bar can escape you let alone trying to move a couch! And logically working out how to move the thing is way beyond what I capable off. It was looking grim. I could see the news headlines –MAN FOUND DEAD TRAPPED IN OWN ROOM. POLICE BAFFLED.
Fortunately for all of Hypo Boy’s fans an alternative plan hatched. Maybe – just maybe – Hypo Boy’s last vestiges of power would help. Exit the room via the window! And so I did. Then the next challenge: the locked back door. Again Hypo Boy’s brilliance came through: crawl through the dog door. Hypo boy looks good in lycra, but could afford to lose a few kilos. Doggie door needed some minor attention after its use by an animal several sizes larger than the designers ever considered.
Finally the kitchen! Hypo boy could save himself!! Why Hypo Boy had packed the jelly beans first was a question for later. There were slightly stale and not so crisp Ginger nut biscuits that would have to do! Well done Hypo Boy. Well done.
Later forensic investigation would reveal that:
a) the couch was pretty well jammed in
b) trying to grab the couch on the other corner would have made the couch twist nicely and popped it out of the door allowing the move to continue, Hypo Boy is obviously VERY, VERY focused on the right side of the world.
Thank you Spike for guest posting today. Please come back again and share more of your stories!
When I’m eating out I very rarely draw attention to the fact I have diabetes. There have been occasions where I have quietly asked a waiter for some juice to come out quickly to treat a low blood sugar. Whenever I’ve done this, the juice has arrived quickly – no questions asked and that’s it! But usually, I don’t do anything that would indicate that my pancreas has been on holidays for the last 15 and a half years.
So it was with some amusement – and surprise – on the second night in Barcelona when a waitress told me she couldn’t help me out as my BGLs were crashing. To make it more amusing, we were at dinner with three other people with type 1 diabetes.
Here’s what happened. We sat down at our table, we chatted, we admired the view from the top of the old Bullring and were excited that there would be fireworks once the sun set as part of the La Mercè Festival, we were given menus. I checked my CGM and saw the number 3.1mmol/l (where did that come from?!) combined with an arrow pointing downwards. I reached into my bag only to remember I’d cleared out my hypo supplies earlier that day thanks to low blood sugar that wouldn’t budge. Time zone changes, the warm Spanish weather and a Sunday spent exploring the city and attending a symposium will do that to me!
So, I quietly signalled to a waitress and quietly and politely asked ‘Would it be possible for you to urgently get me an orange juice please?’ She looked at me before answering ‘No!. It will not be possible.’ The look on my face must have been utter confusion (could have been the plummeting BGLs), but the four other people sitting at our table knew why I used the word ‘urgently’ in my request. They all jumped in with calls of ‘She has diabetes’; ‘Her blood sugar is low’ and ‘She needs sugar’. At the same time they started throwing glucose tabs at me – just to add to the confusion and slapstick routine this was turning into.
Of course, all their calls came at once and were a jumble that barely made any sense, and the waitress just stood there waiting for me to say something else. Calmly, I asked her if it would be possible because I had low blood sugar and needed some sugar. I was conscious of the language problems (mine – not hers. She spoke perfect English. I speak three words of Spanish and one of those is churros) and didn’t really feel like doing a diabetes education session.
Within a couple of minutes, she returned with a tall glass of freshly squeezed orange juice and gently put it down in front of me.
When I thought about it later, I don’t think she was being rude or difficult. I think the fact that the juice was freshly squeezed meant she couldn’t get it to me urgently – that it would take a few minutes to prepare. Or perhaps she misunderstood what I was asking. But her so very matter-of-fact response of ‘No!’ surprised us all.
I could have become all indignant about how EVERYONE IN THE WHOLE WORLD should understand the needs of people with diabetes, but instead, some quiet and calm explaining did the trick. Juice arrived, BGLs headed in the right direction, paella served and fireworks launched. It was a great night.
Today, for the first time in my ‘diabetes-life’, I am wearing a medical-alert bracelet. After a hypo last night that resulted in paramedics, IV dextrose and at-home hourly BGLs (just so I could avoid going to A&E), I pulled out of the draw the bracelet I bought a couple of years ago and put it on.
I have resisted wearing medical-alert jewellery for 15 years and I’m not really sure why. I have never been backwards in coming forwards about the fact I have diabetes and I am certainly not in any way ashamed of living with this condition.
But for some reason, in my weird and twisted mind, the wearing of a piece of jewellery that brands me as ‘type 1 diabetes/insulin pump’ (as the inscription on the back of the tag says) was just too much for me to deal with. I have always associated it with the idea that I would not be able to deal with my diabetes myself; that I’d need someone else to help me and that there would be emergency situations. I’ve pretty much avoided these circumstances so far. Until last night.
So today, I located the bracelet and linked it around my wrist. It’s quite pretty to look at, provided all I can see is the bracelet part and not the tag . But each time I catch a glimpse of it – as I am typing at my computer; as I sat in a café drinking my morning coffee; lifting my arm to push hair out of my eyes – I feel defeated and somewhat branded.
I’ve always wondered about people who get tattoos which proudly declare they have diabetes and I’ve never understood why anyone would do that. I just don’t understand why someone would want to have their health status permanently tattooed to their skin. I’ve always thought if I was to do that, I’d need to add all the other ways I want people to think of me. And having ‘Harry Potter tragic’ or ‘Delusions of Nigella Lawson’ scrawled up and down my arms would just be silly! Again, it’s not because I’m ashamed of having diabetes. Perhaps it has more to do with the fact that I defiantly go against what everyone else is doing and I quite like being the only ‘un-inked’ person in the room. Of course, this is merely my own opinion and I absolutely don’t think any less of people who choose to have a diabetes tattoo. Maybe if braver, I’d do it too.
I’m heading overseas in a couple of weeks for a long trip and for the first few days, I’ll be alone, without my family. It’s probably a smart idea to have something on me that says I have diabetes – just in case something happens. Maybe it will give me some peace of mind, as I’m sure it will my family.
But for today, I’m feeling fragile and not particularly happy. Not happy that now I feel unsafe and feel the need to have something that (in my mind, and I’m sure my mind alone) screams ‘TYPE 1 DIABETES’. I feel that it’s a victory to diabetes. And I hate losing.
Lauren’s Hope jewellery has some gorgeous designs. My bracelet has five strands of black Swarovski crystals holding together the medical-alert tag. It’s quite beautiful, really!
Last week, on Melbourne’s 40 plus degrees (Celsius) day, I put on a pair of bathers and went to the beach. Big deal, I hear you all sigh. But it is! I can’t remember the last time that I wore bathers. I’ve written about my body image issues before, but this year, I decided to bite the bullet, buy a gorgeous new pair of togs and wear them to the beach or pool.
So, in my new, stripy bathers, on the beach, I frolicked and splashed in the water with my family. It was gorgeous and the ideal way to cool down from the scorching weather which, at 9.00pm was still sitting around 36 degrees.
I was having a fantastic time and feeling more than a little proud of myself for not being self-conscious and just having fun. The kidlet was having a ball and couldn’t get enough of splashing her parents. Fun. Fun. Fun. And then I have no idea what happened. No idea at all.
The next thing I remember is sitting on the sand with my daughter next to me. She was building a sand castle and smiled at me. ‘Where’s daddy?’ I asked her. ‘He’s gone to the car to get jellybeans. He’ll be back soon.’ ‘Okay,’ I said. I watched her.
‘Where’s daddy?’ I asked her. ‘Mummy! I just told you. He went to the car. He’ll be back soon.’
At that point, Aaron returned with jellybeans. He looked so concerned. ‘I didn’t know if I was doing the right thing. It was so hard to get you out of the water, I thought there was no chance getting you to the car. You were talking to me, so I thought it best if I quickly go’. ‘I don’t remember getting out of the water,’ I said to Aaron. Apparently I walked, but it took some time for me to agree to get back on the sand.
How this happened, I have no idea. I made the decision before I left home to leave my new pump on the kitchen table and pack a syringe and insulin with me for bolus top ups as necessary or if we decided to get an ice-cream. Before I disconnected my pump, the Dexcom was reading (on my pump) 8.2mmol/l with a nice flat arrow and a flat line preceding it. We’d eaten a low-carb meal, so there was only 0.6 units of insulin on board. I figured that I’d check my BGL when we got to the beach to see if I needed to top up. But I forgot to do that.
Most likely, it was a combination of the heat and the activity in the water (but let’s be honest; I was standing there splashing, not swimming against a current) or doing anything that would warrant the 1.5 mmol/l reading I discovered when I finally checked my sugar after downing a bag of jellybeans in record time.
These hypos make me hate diabetes like nothing else. And they make me hate myself for not doing the things that may have helped me avoid the situation. If only I’d checked my BGL before getting out of the car I would have known that I was dropping and dropping fast. If only I hadn’t left my pump at home, the Dexcom would have picked up my plummeting BGL and warned me. If only I’d packed jellybeans in the beach bag. If only my body did what it was meant to. If only I didn’t have diabetes. If only.
I wonder if my body image issues have anything to do with the fact that I feel like my body fails me constantly. Why would I think of my body as anything other than broken and why would I want to show that to anyone? Is that part of it, or is it just a matter of me being plain shallow, needing to get over it?
There will be many more beach days before now and the end of the sweltering season – a heat wave is on its way. I pushed away the thoughts of never putting on my new bathers again and not going to the beach again with my family. I can’t let diabetes dictate what I do. But I guess I must let it dictate how I do it. If only I’d remembered that before I walked onto the sand last week.
I’m feeling a little vulnerable after a few nasty overnight lows. Three times in the last week I’ve woken around 2.30am with the tell-tale ‘I’m low’ alarms screeching in my heads. I feel heavy. I feel like this.
It goes like this. The middle of the night, and I wake, but not really. I drift between sleep and awake, and whatever dream I am in the midst of starts to become real. I sleep some more, but now, my awake becomes part of my dream and I can’t tell where I begin and where I end.
I know that something is not right and I try to force myself to stir. My eyes are forced open. Legs and arms are heavy. All of me is heavy and thick and my head is muddled. I’m low and I know it, but I can’t remember how to respond.
I drift off to sleep again.
And wake.
‘Get up. Move!’ I tell myself. I try to call to Aaron, but there’s no sound. I reach over for the jar on the bedside table and prise open the lid. And sleep again.
When I wake, there are jellybeans in my hand, but none in my mouth. (I’m lucid right now as I write this, and think about how easy it would be if the glucose could be absorbed through my skin into my bloodstream!) Hand to mouth, tell myself to chew and feel the glucose running down my throat. I force myself not to drift to sleep again, now conscious enough to know that falling asleep with a mouthful of jellybeans is probably not a good idea.
And I’m awake – wide awake, heart pounding, drenched in sweat and starting to panic. Aaron sits up – sensing my terror. He passes me my meter after putting a strip into it. Click goes the lancet and five seconds counts down. 1.2mmol/l it says to me. The numbers don’t register to me, but I can see in Aaron’s face that it’s low. He gets up and grabs me a glass of juice and coaxes it down.
We wait, silently. Bella, our dog stirs in the bathroom, hearing us, thinking it’s morning. She gently scratches at the door, but goes back to sleep when she realised that no one is coming to get her and let her out.
Another BGL check and a 2.6mmol/l. Who would have thought that a number beginning with a two would make us feel better? Safer.
Aaron starts to fall asleep, but I can’t. I am now scared as I start to wonder what this hypo has done to my body. I try to remember recent hypos and how low I was. I lie awake, too scared to sleep. And now I start to count down the hours until the alarm goes off and the day begins.
Eventually, I sleep. But I’m unsettled and force myself awake every hour or so to check my BGL. Not reassured by any number. But I’m not low, so I allow myself to doze again.
The alarm sounds. My body feels like lead. I get up, face the day. It’s another night with diabetes. It’s another day.
So, I guess it’s time for some basal testing and maybe a visit to my lovely endocrinologist. What do others do to help deal with the fallout from hypos that leave you feeling overwhelmed?
Diabetogenic 