Wednesday, June 13, 2012

Of Spacey Lows, Shiny Marble Floors, Comfort From A DOC Friend & Capturing The Lonely Low In A Snapshot

I referenced this experience yesterday in my vlog post over at: accu-chekdiabeteslink (dot) com. Anyway, here's the elongated version.


Photo I snapped while having a low in the Grand Hall~
Photo courtesy of my ipad
It was 3pm in the afternoon and I'd just had a quick coffee meeting with some folks and was dashing towards the Grand Hall to hear a talk and then it hit me. My lips went low and my tongue felt numb and I felt like someone had kicked the shit out of me. I'd been running on the low side for almost all of #ADA2012 and I hadn't bolused for a meal all day. I sat down at one of the many empty tables and tested. I was 48 and quickly grabbed a granola bar from my bag while simultaneously wishing I'd had a juicebox or 5 on my person .
And then I waited. I was by myself and even though I was at an event and sitting in the Grand Hall surrounded by diabetes clinicians, nobody around me realized I was having a low. And I found myself snapping the above picture in my low blood sugar haze with my iPad to capture the irony of being low at a Diabetes Conference.
I get a little spacey when I'm low and I found myself focusing on the shiny marble floors and the sun streaming in from the windows and how it made both the marble floors and walls glisten.
I kept thinking how shiny the marble floors and walls looked and how hard it must be to keep them that way and how I probably would be running low all the time if I was the person responsible for cleaning them - And I was glad that I wasn't that person.
No, I was the person in the Shiny Marble Grand Hall who couldn't get her blood sugar up where it needed to be!! 
The tables in the Grand Hall were almost empty because every one was either in a meeting or a session. And then I was like: Why the hell aren't there any Low Stations like at other diabetes events???  Because there's not to many patients able to, that's why! 
And my mind kept going back to the session I'd been at a day earlier regarding the closed loop and the artificial pancreas. I think the speaker had been from Medtronic but I couldn't recall because my brain wasn't functioning at that moment. 
Anyway, the speaker said  (and I'm paraphrasing here)  That it makes absolutely no sense to keep pumping insulin into a body all night via the insulin pump, when that body was going low! 
And of course I agreed whole heartedly with that statement, 1000% in fact. 
And as I sat there in the Grand Hall, I kept repeating that phrase in my head while simultaneously thinking: This makes no sense that I have no glucose suspend option except for turning off suspending insulin delivery on my own.  
And I kept thinking how great it would be to a cgm/insulin pump that would have done suspended insulin delivery well before hand, and in essence would have prevented this mind blowing low I was currently experiencing. For Christ sakes I was blowing a 48!!! And It never should have gotten to that!!
Then I checked my blood sugar again, it was 64 and I popped open another granola bar and ate half,  then called Bennet. I wanted to catch up with him and on a purely selfish level, I knew that hearing his voice would make me feel better.
So I called him and without really realizing it ( though I think he totally did because I'd told him that I was coming off a low,) he calmed me down.
"Make sure you keep eating long acting carbs tonight before bed, because I don't want you to go low," he said.
Me: Thanks, I will!
Bennett: I hope you don't think I'm crossing some sort of line, it's just having two kids with diabetes, makes me like this.
Me: No, I totally appreciate it. I miss having parental units hovering over me. But I'm fine  - my bg now had now creeped up to 72 - give or take the 10 to 20 % margin of error in either direction and we kept chatting.
Then we finally said goodbye and LY/MI. But I didn't get up from the table. I was tired and I couldn't believe I was only 72. And then I looked at the clock on my iPad and couldn't believe that almost an hour had passed. Spacey lows and shiny marble floors had sucked me into some diabetes time and space continuum and I'd missed the session I'd been on my way to attend.
But sometimes shit happens, and spacey lows and shiny marble floors take precedence. As does talking on the phone with your friend who not only gets diabetes, but has lived it.

7 comments:

Araby62 (a.k.a. Kathy) said...

Were you and Kerri mind-melding?! Like I commented on her blog, whenever I'm having one of those Officially Scary Lows, I picture you and George and Scott and Kerri and everyone else from the DOC sitting in front of me saying the exact same thing. It helps more than you know (:-)

k2 said...

Kathy -
All of us were experiencing continuous low #bbnows during #ada2012. I think it was because the Philadelphia Convention Center was HUGE and multi- leveled, and the session room numbers and times kept changing. One day in a 24 hour period, I only took 25.2 units of insulin!!!

Araby62 (a.k.a. Kathy) said...

OMG. All those D-experts - maybe you were CURED! LOL ;) (I say that once a month - us gals know why!)

Leighann of D-Mom Blog said...

Last night the CGM (which we have to return because our trial is ending) awoke me at 3am predicting a low. When I checked on Q she was 72 already. I gave her a juice. I was so tired and foggy and I figured the CGM would wake me up again if she needed me. It did! That juice only brought her up to 80.

I reduced her basal rate by 50%. But then your recap video came to mind and I thought to myself, wait, why should she be getting any insulin if she's low? I suspended insulin delivery.

An hour or so later she was cruising steady at 140 so I went in and turned it back on.

Two points...
1. Your video made me take a different action than I might have.
2. I'm going to miss the CGM. Without it I would have been checking her blood sugar over and over for the next couple of hours. As it was I think I checked it four times and never did really fall back asleep!

Leighann of D-Mom Blog said...

Last night the CGM (which we have to return because our trial is ending) awoke me at 3am predicting a low. When I checked on Q she was 72 already. I gave her a juice. I was so tired and foggy and I figured the CGM would wake me up again if she needed me. It did! That juice only brought her up to 80.

I reduced her basal rate by 50%. But then your recap video came to mind and I thought to myself, wait, why should she be getting any insulin if she's low? I suspended insulin delivery.

An hour or so later she was cruising steady at 140 so I went in and turned it back on.

Two points...
1. Your video made me take a different action than I might have.
2. I'm going to miss the CGM. Without it I would have been checking her blood sugar over and over for the next couple of hours. As it was I think I checked it four times and never did really fall back asleep!

Scott E said...

"As does talking on the phone with your friend who not only gets diabetes, but has lived it."

I have never once, in my 31 years living off someone else's insulin, been able to do that. In spite of this hazy hour, you should consider yourself extremely lucky.

Scully said...

I enjoy reading detailed accounts of other PWD low experiences. Not because I like it when you're low... but because its so easily to relate to. I can picture every thought, every feeling. The shiny marble floors.
*sigh* I'm going to call someone who "knows" next time.