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Today, I (literally) rolled up my sleeves and put my money where my mouth is.
It’s fluvax day at work and with most of my colleagues, I lined up to get a free lollypop. And my annual flu vaccination. With all my banging on about how important it is for us to be vaccinated, it would be pretty hypocritical of me to not get my flu jab each year.
Here’s how it played out:
Step 1 – look of great suspicion from me because no one but no one can give a needle like I can.
Step 2– Squeeeeeze! And waiting for the sting.
Step 3 – Here. Let me help you! (AKA – I’m really not good at letting other people jab me with needles.)
Step 4 – I’ll take it from here.
Step 5 – Nope – didn’t hurt.
Step 6 – Worth it!
Okay, so here’s the deal. People living with chronic health conditions – such as diabetes – are more susceptible to catching (and experiencing complications from) the flu. The flu is not a little sniffle that has you deciding to take the day off so you can sit on the couch, eat left over Easter eggs and binge-watch Netflix. The flu is terribly debilitating. Approximately 3,000 Australians die every year because of the seasonal flu, or complications due to the flu or pneumonia. Yes – it’s serious.
This terrific information sheet offers lots of information about the flu, and this year’s vaccination program. It’s been developed by the Australian Government’s Department of Health, so if you are an anti-vax twit, now is your time to start talking about conspiracy theories and how the Government is in the pocket of Big Pharma. (Please do it away from me. I’m not interested.)
Also useful is this piece that appeared last month on The Conversation.
The flu is incredibly contagious and spreads easily through infected droplets in the air and by hands. Vaccination is the best way to prevent and stop the spread of the flu. I don’t know about you, but I do as much as I can to live a healthy life. Getting my annual flu vax is a really simple, relatively painless and safe way to help me on my way.
Recently, I had a period where for three days, I dealt with BGLs that would not drop below 15mmol/l. Most of the time, they were above 20mmol/l, which is revolting and even more so when considered in the US-measure: 360mg/dl. (I’m not sure why, but for those few days, I kept converting my high numbers to US numbers. For anyone playing at home, I hit 461mg/dl. Don’t play at home. Really. Don’t. And file under: #StupidThingsIDoWhenHigh and also, I am good at multiplying by 18.)
Anyway, it was crap. I felt crap. And I wanted to cry. A couple of times my stupid meter simply said ‘hi’ which is not so much friendly as a declaration of giving up. It doesn’t know where to go above about 33mmol/l, so it just stops working, instead throwing out random greetings. My CGM graph was off the charts.
Why was I high (hi)? I’ve no idea. Seriously. No idea. I wasn’t eating cupcakes for breakfast, lunch and dinner. I went through the usual checklist of ‘things that could possible make my BGL high’ which includes:
- Eating cupcakes for breakfast, lunch and dinner
- Forgetting to bolus
- Not bolusing enough
- Bent cannula
- Dodgy insulin
- Stress
- Impending virus
- Period
- Exercising when already high (ha, as if!)
- Eating ridiculously large quantities of ridiculously high carb foods
- Eating a whole jar of Nutella in one sitting
- Infection at cannula site
- Pump not delivering properly
- Following a paleo diet/I Quit Sugar diet and pretending I’d cured myself of diabetes and didn’t require insulin anymore
- Anything and everything else ever and ever and ever and ever
I wasn’t forgetting to bolus – I actually was correcting every couple of hours. I (as it turned out, unnecessarily) ripped out three cannulas – and starting looking at the fourth one very suspiciously, wishing I had see-through skin so I could identify any bent-cannula hiding under the skin. And then thinking about how creepy having see-through skin would be and then vomiting a bit in my mouth.
Nope. No reason at all.
I stopped eating anything carb-containing, instead eating a salad of greens and chicken for lunch and chicken soup with (non-carb containing) vegies for dinner. I rage-bolused for the milky coffee that I really needed at 3pm –the only carbs I consumed for the whole day.
And still, every time I checked, I was sitting close to 20mmol/l. Any reading of 15mmol/l, which ordinarily would result in me throwing a mini-tantrum, seemed a victory. But it was fleeting and before long, I would be heading upwards again.
By day three, I felt that I had an aura of exhaustion surrounding me. My limbs were heavy and climbing the stairs to my office was draining. I countered my exhaustion with ridiculous quantities of coffee, replacing my usual latte for a short macchiato to minimise the milk I was drinking.
I had a lunch of sashimi (my favourite no-carb lunch) and got on with my afternoon at work.
At about 2pm, I checked my BGL, expecting to see another high number. But instead, I had my first number under 10mmol/l for three days: 9.8mmol/l said my meter.
Over the next couple of hours, I kept a close eye on things. I had quite a bit of insulin on board (yes, I know I shouldn’t, but of course I rage bolus when numbers won’t come down and I am frustrated) and I didn’t want to crash and burn with a nasty hypo.
I kept a fruit box of pineapple juice next to me and took a sip every now and then and managed to not dip below 4mmol/l.
By the next day, I was back on a far-more level playing field. My numbers were in-range and there were no more surprises.
I reviewed my BGL readings and pump activity for the previous days and in all honesty can’t say what I would have done differently. There really was absolutely no discernible reason for the crazy-high numbers – at least none that I could see.
Although my BGLs remained stable for a few days afterwards, it took me some time to get over the sludgy feeling that follows an extended period of high numbers. I was tired and achy and my legs continued to feel heavy.
All in all, it was about six days of feeling below par – first from the high numbers and then its aftermath. And, of course, the emotional frustration that comes with not being able to pin point the reason for feeling crap – and then being able to fix it.
When people ask what living with diabetes is like, I don’t know how to put into words these sorts of experiences in a way that makes any sense. I can explain the number of times I have to jab my finger to check my BGL. I can talk about how I wear a little box shoved in my bra and press a few buttons for it to deliver me some life-saving medication. I can count out the number of hours I spend with healthcare professionals each year.
But how to explain and quantify the frustration? How do I explain the sense of helplessness when I can’t work out what is going wrong? How do I explain that sometimes there are simply no answers and we just have to ride it out until things (hopefully) get back on track?
I’ve no idea. But for me, this is the essence of diabetes. The frustration and helplessness. And it remains for a long time after numbers get back in range.
It takes me somewhere between 12 and 25 minutes to drive to work in the mornings. I drive down a terribly busy road which carries trams, cars, trucks and bikes. People dash across the road whenever they can. It is hectic!
Yesterday morning, I was sitting in traffic, mentally counting down how long it would be before I got to my morning café for my take away coffee.
I yawned. ‘Need coffee,’ I thought. I yawned again. And again. ‘Oh, shit,’ I thought. Even though I felt fine, the incessant yawning gave it away. I was low.
I reached into my handbag and pulled out the pink and red Marimekko purse and, taking advantage of the banked up traffic, pushed a strip into the bottom of the meter, pricked my finger and wiped the drop of blood across the strip.
2.8mmol/l.
I swore. Loudly. So loudly that the woman in the car next to me looked over at me. We both had our windows closed.
The road is a clearway in the mornings; I couldn’t pull over. I put on my indicator, silently begging the traffic to move so I could turn left into the street ahead.
I grabbed a handful of jellybeans from my bag, and shoved them down my throat, chewing furiously as the cars in front of me inched forward.
Finally I could turn left. I pulled into the side street and parked. Turning off the engine, I sat there chewing and gulping.
How had this happened? I scrolled back through my meter and saw that less than 20 minutes earlier, just before I left the house to drop the kidlet at school, my BGL was 5.9mmol/l.
My eyes filled with tears at this point – typical response when I think about how diabetes impacts on those I love. I swiped my hand across my eyes, cursing (again) as I saw my mascara had run.
Involuntarily, my hand moved to my stomach where my CGM was fastened. As I was rushing around getting ready that morning, my pump pulsed and squealed, telling me that the sensor was dead after having been in for seven days. I knew I just needed to reset it – it was still reading beautifully.
But I didn’t. I didn’t restart it. I just shoved my pump away, thinking that I’d maybe, maybe, not sure, perhaps start it later in the day. If I felt like it.
I swore again – this time at myself.
I need this. At the moment, I need this. I am already feeling so lousy at diabetes – second guessing everything – I need whatever help I can to help me.
I looked at myself in the rear-view mirror. ‘I need this,’ I told myself, tears welling again.
After about ten minutes, I rechecked my BGL and it was back up over five. I was good to drive and make my way to work.
I went to start the car and stopped. I pulled my pump out from my bra and scrolled through the menu until I found what I was looking for. ‘Start CGM Sensor Session’.
I pressed start.
Last night, I rather smugly put this picture up on my Instagram:
‘Look at me,’ the picture screams. ‘I am winning at diabetes!’
And then, this morning, after eight hours of uninterrupted sleep, this was how my pump screen looked:
W.I.N.N.I.N.G.
So, riddle me this, why did I wake – after eight hours of uninterrupted sleep – feeling so completely and utterly exhausted? I wasn’t up overnight to go to the loo or let the dog out or deal with a low blood sugar. I just slept. Peacefully.
There was no explanation.
Until I looked at this:
And this:
And this:
And then it all made sense. Except it didn’t. How had that happened? Had I sleep-walked into the kitchen, sleep-baked a pavlova and sleep-eaten it? Had I reached over in my sleep and eaten some of the jelly snakes on my bedside table?
The answer is no. All I had done in those eight hours was sleep.
Without my CGM on, I would have had that pre-bed BGL and the morning BGL as the only pieces of information. And it would have looked damn pretty. I would have spent all day thinking about how lovely and pretty and stable by BGLs had been overnight.
But with my CGM on, I know a lot more.
Which is great, except I’m not sure that I want to know. Because now I feel like I have to do something about it and quite frankly, I am still not in the headspace to be analysing glucose levels and making basal changes and being all diabetes-smart.
My CGM is on this week as a security measure. I really didn’t feel like putting it in, but I knew that I needed to. I am counting down until I can rip it out on Friday morning, which is a far cry from trying to get as many days as possible out of each sensor as a cost-saving measure.
I now know why I am not feeling particularly rested, but I feel even less rested with all this information at hand. THIS is when data is paralyising – when we just don’t have the ability – for whatever reason – to do anything with it and all it does is overwhelm us. Ever more.
Emergency!!!
I was a little excited to learn the other day that my iPhone 6 could do this:
My medical ID can be accessed from the lock screen (i.e. no password required). The details can be customised (as such, I have chosen to NOT include my weight here!) and ICE contact details can be added.
How much will paramedics and other emergency services staff use it? I’ve no idea. But it gives me another excuse to lull myself into a false sense of security believing that I don’t need to wear a medical alert bracelet. (Okay, okay; I’ll get on to that!)
What’s the latest from MySugr?
This! Congratulations guys – so thrilled to see that you are continuing to go from strength to strength. It’s what happens when people with diabetes are creating things for people with diabetes.
My Sugr – helping diabetes suck less.
Dexcom. Like a pancake.
The new lower profile Dexcom has been launched in Australia. Which is good because the first G4 sticks out this much:
And when wearing a dress that is this tight, it’s pretty bloody unforgiving!
Doctors 2.0 tweetchat
I know that it seems pointless talking about this after it happened, but this morning I took part in a terrific tweet chat from the wonderful Denise Silber (I love that I get to refer to her as an American in Paris – ‘cause that’s what she is!) and the team at Doctors 2.0 and You. Read the transcript if you can (hashtag: #doctors20) – it was a great discussion about fostering the consumer (patient) HCP relationship using SoMe.
Munchausen by Internet
This probably warrants a blog post of its own, but in the meantime, have you been keeping an eye out on the Belle Gibson story? The short of it is that Belle, who has built a social media empire sharing her story of beating cancer using only diet and positive thinking, has not been entirely honest.
Not only does it seem that Belle is not who she says she is (she is not even the age she has said she is!), but there is mounting evidence that she never even had cancer. Add to this some questionable online fundraising activities, and you can understand why this story has captured the media’s attention.
While the whole story is reprehensible, it has left a lot of people asking why someone would fake having cancer (or any other medical condition). As it turns out, this is a thing. And it’s called Munchausen by Internet.
I first read something about Munchausen by Internet years ago in the Good Weekend. (You can find the article here.) And once I became part of the DOC, I remember a couple of times where people who have claimed to have diabetes have been exposed as fakes. (Here’s a post from Your Diabetes May Vary.)
There’s lots about Belle Gibson’s case online at the moment. Start here. And here.
Kudos to D-UK
Last week was the Diabetes UK Professional Conference in London. It was great to see so much twitter activity from the conference with a significant contingent of consumer (patient) bloggers and social media folk at the event and tweeting from some of the sessions.
Well done to D-UK for remembering that even though the event may not be for PWD, we have an interest in what is happening there. And who better to share that information than others living with diabetes?!
Bugger off Pete Evans
It’s never nice to take delight in someone’s misfortune, but let me tell you that I have been doing A LOT of fist pumping with all the articles exposing Pete Evans and his latest ridiculous efforts to provide nutritional information for babies. Yes. Babies.
As a foodie and someone who has a ridiculously large cookbook and cooking magazine collection, I am always on the lookout for new recipe books. Because they are a good source of…recipes. The people writing these books are chefs or cooks who are good at….cooking.
But the second that someone moves from cook/chef/someone who can show me how to incorporate Nutella into another recipe, to pretend healthcare professional, they are no longer welcome on my bookshelf.
I don’t care that Evans claims to be working with a ‘nutritionist’, he is a chef. His area of expertise is mixing ingredients together, cooking them at the right temperature for the right length of time to produce something yummy.
He’s not done any meaningful study that gives him any credibility at all to provide information about nutrition. At all. So why he thinks he should be playing in this space is completely and utterly beyond me.
Recipes!
I made these. And they were delicious. I adapted the recipe slightly and half of the biscuits ended up with Nutella AND peanut butter in the filling. Which made them even better.
Driving
After I wrote this piece, I’ve had a lot of people mention to me that they have been asked to provide an eye report for no apparent reason.
This seems to be a particular issue in Victoria.
Remember – if you’ve not been asked to provide an eye report before and at no time has it been indicated on your medical report (filled in my your GP or endo) that you have diabetes-related eye problems, you are not required to (as a matter of course) submit an eye report.
Again – Nowhere in the regulations does it state that it is mandatory for people with insulin-treated diabetes to arbitrarily provide an eye report.
The best way to address it if this has happened to you is to start by calling the number of Medical Review at VicRoads and query the request.
If you are not satisfied with the response (i.e. you are still being asked to fill in the eye report and are told that the regulations call for this) call the Advocacy team at Diabetes Australia – Vic.
Cartoons
New Yorker cartoons are possibly the best things ever and the medical ones have me giggling all the time. Like this one.
Don’t blame me once you click on this and then don’t get another thing done today!
Happy St Pat’s Day!
When the kidlet was about two weeks from being born, Aaron and I went to see The Chieftains play at The Palais. For two hours of jigs and reels, the little munchkin kicked and danced around, only stopping when the music stopped.
‘We had diary today,’ said the kidlet. We were all sitting at the table having dinner. This, I have come to understand, is one of the times we learn most about what the kidlet is thinking and what she is up to.
At the beginning of the year, all the kids were given diaries. Each night they are meant to fill details of the the book they are reading and the page numbers they have read for the day. I get why this is important. It allows the teachers to see just how much the kids are reading and the sorts of books on their reading lists. It teaches discipline and it provides a record.
Now, we have a reader. She is one of those kids who reads under the covers with a torch after lights out. When I call out to her and she doesn’t answer, it’s because she is most likely sitting somewhere outside, puppy at her feet with her nose in a book, so engrossed that she doesn’t hear my increasingly-annoyed voice calling her name.
For the first week, the kidlet was a little obsessive about her diary. Every night when Aaron and I went in to tell her to turn the light out, she would say she had to fill in the details. So, she would climb out of bed to find her diary and dutifully write in it.
I started to get annoyed. It was messing with our hard-worked-for bedtime routine with a kid who is the master of delay-tactics. She just had another thing added to her arsenal to delay going to sleep. And this time it was school-sanctioned!
The diligence lasted a couple of weeks. And then, it stopped. I completely forgot about it, so didn’t ask her.
So when she told us that she had ‘diary’ today, I realised that I’d not seen her filling it in much recently.
‘Do you still complete that every day? I’ve not seen it at home.’
‘Nope,’ she said. ‘I fill it in at the last minute while I’m sitting in class. I write down the books I’ve been reading and guess the number of pages. I know that I’ve been reading; I read every day. Heaps! Why do I need to write it down in a diary? That doesn’t show how good my reading is, does it?’ She said this without a hint of sheepishness.
I smothered a smile.
I knew I should tell her that she needs to do what she is asked to do by her teacher. I knew I should say to her that there is a reason for keeping the diary. I knew I should mention to her that it is something all kids are required to do and that she is no different from the other kids.
I knew that.
But I also knew how hypocritical it would be for me to tell her that. If she asked me what was being achieved by filling in the diary each day – how it would improve her reading or learning skills – I couldn’t give her an answer.
There is no way I would fill in a log book of my BGL levels just as a matter of course. If there was a reason for it – checking basal rates, trying to deal with pesky lows (or highs) – sure, I can see why.
But if the reason is just ‘its’s-what-we-get-all-people-with-diabetes-to-do-just-because-we-do’, I’s refuse. I can’t see the point.
Later on, I suggested that the kidlet have a conversation with her teacher about the diary and to talk about ways that she could use it that are meaningful to her – such as listing all the books that she finishes reading, or listing books she would like to read. She considered my ideas and said she’d think about it. (Possibly ten year-old speak for ‘If I say okay, will you stop talking about it, mum?’)
I thought about her sitting there in class just before she was to show her diary to her teacher. I thought about her frantically writing down the books and guesstimating page numbers. I wondered if she was using different coloured pens, so it looked like she had filled it in each day rather that in one hit. And I smiled. Because that’s exactly what I would do. That’s exactly what I did do.
Like mother, like daughter. And then I stopped smiling. Those teenage years are gonna be a nightmare!
Cookies!
I’ve just had a wonderful long weekend where pretty much every moment we were home, the oven was on with cakes, biscuits and pies filling the house with beautiful smells.
I spent the time out of the house doing the things that build me up – playing in the park and soaking up the sun, visiting bookshops, going to galleries, drinking coffee. We added artwork to our SHAG collection and I added a couple of new bracelets to my Kate Spade arsenal. I danced to Taylor Swift in the kitchen with my girl and watched Better Call Saul with my boy. Family dropped in, cups of tea were drunk, neighbours were visited. I took a Twitter break. We chased the moon. International Women’s Day was marked.
It was a good weekend – a great weekend.
Now showing on the wall in our living room.
And yet.
I start the week with a ball in the pit of my stomach and am incredibly distracted. I have an appointment tomorrow with my endo. And I am terrified.
It’s been too long since I last saw her. And if truth be told, I really don’t want to see her. I don’t want to sit there and discuss diabetes – my diabetes – and talk about how I have really dropped the ball. (Understatement.)
I don’t want to talk about the burnout that has overwhelmed me for so long and even though I feel myself emerging – there are glimpses of brightness – I don’t want to admit just how much it has affected my diabetes self-care.
I don’t want to discuss complications screenings. I don’t want to talk about them. I don’t want to know. I don’t want to face things.
I don’t want to sit in her office and cry, which I know is exactly what I will do the moment I sit down and she asks me how I have been in her incredibly non-judgemental, beautiful, concerned and caring way.
New jangly bracelets.
Throughout the last few days, in the middle of all the lovely stuff, I have paused and taken stock and thought of my upcoming appointment. I have thought about how it will play out. I have considered how, after the tears and admissions of feelings of guilt, I will leave feeling stronger and more determined – I always do after seeing my endo. But I am still scared and anxious about it all. I know that the truth of what has been going on scares me and the possibility of what has been going wrong. All of this terrifies me beyond belief.
I needed the long weekend to build me up and help with my resilience stores and I feel that it certainly did that. My support network is strong and I have people around me who are so gentle in the way the support and encourage me to live well with diabetes.
So with this in mind, I am focusing on getting through the next couple of days. And what happens after my appointment.
An expensive trip to Readings
A full biscuit tin, an armful of noisy bangles, a library of new books and a gorgeous new Josh Agle artwork on the wall are all helping and keeping me grounded. All things I need as I face a tough week.
It’s #DBlogCheck day. Read about it here and go and give some love to – and leave a comment on – some of the diabetes blogs out there that help make up this wonderful community.
I am on a 7am flight to Adelaide for a day-long meeting. This is just plain rude and given that I’m on about 5 hours sleep (self-inflicted), I am coffee-d up to my eyeballs just so I can stay awake.
So, on the flight, sitting in seat 15B, I have had a little snooze, (maintaining my ‘only ever been awake for take off twice’ record by being sound asleep as we taxied and took off), and am now staring, zombie-like, at my iPad trying to make sense of the words I am typing. (Good luck to the nosey woman in seat 15C who is totally not surreptitiously reading what I am typing.)
And I’m yawning. A lot.
Recently, I have noticed a new hypo symptom. When low – having dropped slowly, I get very yawn-y. It happens completely out of the blue – a sudden onset of lazy, gaping oscitancy.
The first time this happened, I was with friends and all of a sudden, it started. I couldn’t stop yawning. One after another after another. I kept apologising, saying that the last few late nights must be catching up with me.
Shortly after, I checked my BGL and I was low – not staggeringly so, but low nonetheless. As soon as I treated and my BGLs rose, the yawning stopped and I felt fine.
It happened a few more times before I put two and two together. Sudden yawns = slowly decreasing BGLs.
When it happens, there are absolutely no other symptoms. The shaky, sweaty adrenaline rush hypos that come from either a rapid drop, or waking up suddenly overnight are completely absent. Instead, it’s a listless, snail-like feeling of sluggishness and a realisation that I am yawning. A lot.
This new low symptom is manageable and now that I have worked it out, I can use it quite effectively. As soon as I notice the yawns have started, I treat.
As someone who at times has impaired hypo awareness – love it when a BGL check shows a 2.5mmol/l and I am feeling perfectly fine – I’ll take any symptoms at all. And for me those hypos that sneak up on me are particularly symptom-less. So this is quite a welcome new development.
Of course, on days like today – when my day started on an early morning flight after a night of minimal sleep – it gets confusing. I’m yet to work out how to differentiate if a yawn is a hint I’m low. Or a silent scream for coffee.
Have a look at pretty much any diabetes website, and the instructions for treating a low blood sugar will look something like this:
Eat six jelly beans OR 100ml of lemonade (not diet) OR three teaspoons of sugar. Wait 10 minutes, recheck your BGL and if still low, treat again.
That is lovely and pretty and neat and sensible.
Hypos are not lovely and pretty and neat and sensible.
And hypo-brain cannot compute anything, much less how to measure out 100ml of liquid. Or how to count to six.
Also, waiting 10 minutes when you are pretty sure that you are about to die unless you mainline sugar is not gonna happen.
The reality of treating a hypo is messy, disorganised and agitated. It might look a little like this:
Eat six jelly beans. Then another six. Then another six. Oh, what the hell, eat all the jelly beans in the house.
Find lemonade. Try to open bottle. Cannot open bottle because cannot work out which end is the top and which end is the bottom of bottle. Eventually work that out and with superior hypo-strength, open bottle easily. Because you have been shaking bottle (trying to work out which end is up), lemonade explodes and splashes everywhere. Skull whatever is left in the bottle. Lick counter top of all lemonade. Look at the floor and consider licking the floor, but realise the dog beat you to it.
Open fridge and see that there is a juice popper in there. Unable to work out how to use the straw, so grab a sharp knife (possibly stabbing yourself in the process) and pierce a hole in the top of the box. Throw head back and squeeze contents of juice box into your mouth, and down your face and down your top (all the while convincing yourself that of course you look like a sexy swimsuit model in a soft-drink commercial!).
See a jar of Nutella on the countertop. Open it. Grab a spoon. Look at spoon. Realise spoon is superfluous. Use fingers and scoop chocolate-hazelnut goodness directly into your mouth. And around your mouth. And probably in your hair. And up your nose.
Decide it might be the time to check your BGL now. Meter shows result of 34.5mmol/l. You realise the blood on the strip is mixed with Nutella, lemonade, juice and jelly bean residue and therefore probably not accurate. Wash hands; wipe on legs. Re-check. 2.9mmol/l.
Clearly you are still about to die.
Open pantry door and curse yourself for all the healthy food in there. Grab a bowl of cereal, grab milk from fridge and pour over cereal, and force it down your throat, wishing that you had Crunchy Nut Cornflakes or Coco Pops instead of stupid, healthy high-fibre crap that tastes like cardboard, but you have convinced the kidlet is delicious and the best possible start to the day.
See half-empty packet of dried apricots. Cannot ever remember buying a packet of dried apricots. Cannot focus eyes to see use-by date on packet of dried apricots, but assume they do not ever go off. Eat three of them before realising that dried apricots should probably be orange in colour, not grey. Throw remainder of packet back in cupboard. For use when next time low.
Notice a jar of honey. Open, throw head back, squeeze jar, emptying about 100ml down the back of your throat. Choke slightly.
Eat five nectarines. Swallow stones of two of them.
Pull flower off stem of gladioli in middle of kitchen table. Start to eat. Just because.
Look at sponge on sink and wonder if there would be any glucose stored in there that could help get this effing low over and done with. Consider eating it.
Start spooning sugar directly from sugar bowl into mouth. Lose count at spoon number 15.
Check BGL. 3.4mmol/l. Looking good! Decide to make toast just to be sure.
Eat toast spread 1 inch thick with jam. Also eat a dozen spoonfuls of jam straight from the jar. For good measure.
Collapse on nearest chair, realising you have just eaten your body weight in glucose. But still wonder if you have beaten this low.
THAT is the reality of treating a hypo: the frantic, adrenalin-fuelled grab for anything and everything in sight. There is no concept of having to deal with the aftermath – because we believe that if we don’t eat and eat and eat there will be no aftermath. With our heart thumping, our blood rushing and all our senses on heightened alert, we eat until we either cannot eat another thing, or feel confident that we have eaten enough to bring our BGL back up to a safe level.
To feel safe. That’s all we want. Desperately want. To feel safe.
Diabetogenic 