Saturday, May 19, 2012

First Time Frightened

Articles - Diabetes Articles
Thursday, 12 August 2010 11:50
(Please note: I am aware that some of my readers have dealt for many years with diabetes being fare more intrusive than mine is at this stage. I am guessing that my reaction to what happened may seem silly, but I want to document this as I experienced it.)

Wednesday morning, my fasting test was in the 140s, higher than is optimal for me. So, though I don't to this often, I decided to test before leaving for my lunch hour and choose lunch based on the result. 132, so I decided to just have a salad for lunch.

I usually like to relax in the staff lounge over lunch hour and pick my meal up on my way back to my desk. I'm trying to do some pre- and post-testing to learn better meals, so I tested again. 82. I'd dropped 50 points in an hour of doing essentially nothing. That felt new, and as close as I was to the bottom of my good range, I was afraid that I was still dropping. And the meal I had chosen was pretty close to carb-free.

I admit it: I panicked a little. Was I going to go low, maybe seriously so? And what could I do to stop it? If something really bad was happening, a quarter cup of tomatoes wasn't going to slow it down. (Did I remember that I had glucose tabs for backup, sitting right in my desk? Noooooooooo.)

For the first time since diagnosis, I was scared about what was happening to me then. Sure, I've worried plenty about complications down the road, and about the significance of the occasional tingling in my feet, but that's a different thing. Even the time I was in the 400s, I knew what had caused it and I thought I knew the best thing to do about it (though I was wrong).

Even though the adult part of my brain kept trying to assure me that a problem was unlikely, I still felt frightened. And, I felt alone.

I calmed down some, and ate my salad. Half an hour later, I was at 87, so I was no longer dropping. At my 2-hour post test, I was nearly 100. The crisis, if there ever was a crisis, was over.

What's significant about that event to me is not what happened with the blood sugar, but how I felt about it. I'm not surprised that I was frightened, but I wouldn't have anticipated the sense of isolation. That sense of isolation might be telling me that I need a stronger emergency backup system. Maybe I need to remind my colleagues about my supply of glucose tabs and what to do if I need them. Maybe I need to decide how I would handle a real semi-emergency, one that didn't seem at a 911 level.

I'm not alone. I just need a plan.

 
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