Upon entering the front door of my siblings' apartment, there is a small chair on the false wooden floor foyer for taking off and donning shoes, boots, and tying them for travel. My daughter decides that she wants to paint her finger nails. I think that since she saw her Aunt Jeannine do her toe nails, and they looked awesome, that she would do the same for her fingers. To do this, she takes the chair into the bathroom where there is a long cantilevered table in front of a mirror. Then, as she begins, she decides not to do it. So she leaves the chair in place, and comes to dinner.
Dinner, as has been the entire time at my siblings' place, delicious and plentiful. An after dinner treat was cheese. American style cheeses can have some strong flavors like sharp cheddar, but generally the flavors are mild. The French cheeses are amazingly fragrant, like a men's locker room. Roquefort, brie, and goat cheese were served. The Roquefort was delicious with bread and the fig preserves. The brie, well, it was so strong it was difficult to eat and did not get consumed. The goat cheese was far more milder than the stuff we get in America. After the cheese, we have a few pieces of fruit and we relaxed for the remainder of the evening.
Just before heading to bed, I do my normal routine. I take a children's aspirin, take a shower, then inject long acting insulin and take the remainder handful of medications and supplements for my variety of ailments. Taking insulin is a bit scary, because you have to get it into the fatty tissue with an injection - needle. If you know me, finding that is not too difficult on most of my body, except my head or legs. I usually put it into my side or my daughter puts it into the back of my arm. Either way, it usually ends up in the right place. Usually. The night of the 23rd it ended up in my vein on the side of my belly, I shot long acting insulin into my circulation system; not good, not good at all.
Within 1 hour my glucose fell 200 points and I was woken up out of a dead sleep shaking. Fortunately my body warns me of such episodes. So I got up and realized I had to pee. So I went into the bathroom, jammed my right foot into the chair that was not supposed to be in the bathroom, and began to fall. When the glucose falls, so do I. I grabbed for the wall, but ended up grabbing one of the towel racks. The rack gave way, and came out of the wall, partially. So here I am, trembling from low glucose, with a full bladder, my foot is screaming in pain, and I am balancing on my left foot with a partially mounted towel rack. I let go of the rack, get to the light in the bathroom, I don't usually turn it on so I don't wake up too much, fix the rack, pee, and hobble to the dinning room to find my glucometer. My glucose was 34 and dropping. I needed sugar immediately or an ambulance that had dextrose IV liquids. I prefer drinking something sweet. So, I hobble to the refrigerator, get some juice where the juices are, sit down at the table, and have a glass of what I know is juice, but not sure what type.
I then have the idea to eat a candy-bar; Snickers because of the sugar and peanuts. I hobble to the bedroom, and ask Sarah for help to find some Lactaid, a lactaze supplement; I'm lactose intolerant and the last thing I need is an upset stomach to go with the low blood sugar and now ever throbbing toes. Sarah looks at me, I tell her the problem, she says ok, then drops back to sleep. Much good that was. I find the Lactaid, take a few, and eat a candy bar and more juice. Within 30 minutes my glucose is back up to 56. within an hour it's 101 and I hobble to bed and crash. When glucose goes that low with me, it causes my adrenal glands to produce extra adrenaline according to my doctors; it's what causes me to tremble and wake me up when my glucose is low. The downside is that when it's gone, I fall into a deep sleep.
When I woke in the morning, I thought it was all a bad dream, until I realized by toes were still throbbing, there were candy wrappers in the pocket where my glucometer was supposed to be, and an empty quart box of Clementine juice was on the dinning room table. Moral of this story, aside from don't put insulin into a vein, put things back where you find them or someone is liable to pay the consequences.
No comments:
Post a Comment