{"id":35177,"date":"2014-01-27T06:44:30","date_gmt":"2014-01-27T11:44:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/asweetlife.org\/?p=35177"},"modified":"2015-12-27T15:44:18","modified_gmt":"2015-12-27T20:44:18","slug":"st-happens-so-does-hypoglycemia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/asweetlife.org\/?p=35177","title":{"rendered":"S**T Happens, So Does Hypoglycemia"},"content":{"rendered":"

That awkward moment when someone asks a (seemingly) innocent question about your diabetes and all you can do is shrug, because if you open your mouth obscenities will fly out of it…<\/em><\/p>\n

Okay, I’ll admit it: I’m on edge. \u00a0The last few days have been rough on my family. \u00a0My youngest son, Adam, became quite sick on Tuesday. \u00a0And on Thursday night, things took a turn for the worse. \u00a0On both Friday and Saturday, Mike and I took Adam to urgent care. \u00a0Luckily, he was treated there and we did not have to go to the hospital. \u00a0Unluckily, the treatment involved big injections into his butt. Adam was brave, but it was a painful ordeal. \u00a0For him, though, it came and went. He mentioned a few times that his butt was sore, otherwise, he’s mostly himself again. For me, seeing him so sick ripped up my heart.<\/p>\n

Adam had improved enough by Saturday night that Mike felt it was fine to go out with his running buddies to celebrate completing the Tiberias Marathon<\/a>. \u00a0I \u00a0stayed home, and got the kids to bed. \u00a0I could have easily gone to sleep at the same time as the kids, but I knew I should stay awake to catch up on the laundry and email I’d neglected for several days. \u00a0It turns out to have been an excellent decision. \u00a0Here’s why:<\/p>\n

1. I had turned the ringer off on my phone when I was getting the kids to bed, and forgot to put it back on.<\/p>\n

2. Mike forgot to take his keys when he went out.<\/p>\n

3. On his way home from dinner, Mike started to feel really bad: disoriented and shaky.<\/p>\n

4. In the elevator in our building, he texted to me, “please open.”<\/p>\n

5. My phone didn’t make a sound, so I didn’t know to run to the door. But I was working at my computer, near the front door so I heard the scuffle of Mike’s arrival. \u00a0<\/p>\n

6. Mike was pale. \u00a0“I think I’m low,” he said.<\/p>\n

7. Yes, 35 is definitely low.<\/p>\n

8. Mike ate voraciously. \u00a0Anything his hand could reach went into his mouth. \u00a0Then he collapsed on the couch and the roller coaster began.<\/p>\n

I went back and forth between checking Adam and checking Mike for the next several hours. \u00a0When all seemed okay, I allowed myself to fall asleep for a few hours. \u00a0You might expect that I will now tell you how fragile everything felt over the weekend. \u00a0It did. \u00a0It was miserable. \u00a0I’m so grateful that things are better right now. But, no, I’m not going that route. Instead, I’m going to talk about how pissed off I got when I relayed the story of the “35” to some friends. \u00a0They all responded in the exact same way, by asking the innocent questions – what happened?<\/em>\u00a0or\u00a0how did that happen? \u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

You know what guys, hypoglycemia happens. \u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/em>Hypoglycemia is part of life with diabetes. \u00a0When you ask why it happened, the answers we can give you are that we took too much insulin or didn’t eat enough. \u00a0We don’t really know how all of the other factors, like the ebb and flow of hormones, play in. But that doesn’t mean we’ve done something wrong, and those innocent questions of how and why \u00a0leave us no choice but to answer that we’ve fucked up. \u00a0So, yes, that’s the truth. \u00a0But imagine if someone told you that you had to drive across the country without a map and predetermine the precise amount of gas it would take to do so, not to the gallon, but to the drop. There’s a good chance you’d run out of fuel on the way because you got lost and drove extra miles, and there’s a good chance you’d overestimate your needs, assuming traffic and detours, and have some to spare.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Next time I mention hypoglycemia, if I don’t offer up a reason, don’t ask me what happened. \u00a0Just agree with me that it sucks. \u00a0Blaming the unpredictability of diabetes is much kinder than blaming the person with diabetes.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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