Hypoglycemia: it's probably one of the biggest things that I write about on this blog. Naturally - it's one of the biggest side effects of being on insulin. One of the worst feelings in the world. Each low feels different, every experience unlike the one before: sometimes I don't feel them at all. I'll casually test, see a 50 and say, "Oh, wow, I'm low. I don't feel bad at all," and casually saunter to the kitchen or wherever to grab a snack. Others, I'll be in the middle of Walmart, feel low and have to start eating something out of my cart because I'm out of snacks. Sometimes a little girl will look at her mom and whisper, "Is she supposed to be doing that?" Confused, because lows are those sinister, invisible monsters that sneak up on you and rob you of the right to control your own body movements. Or think properly. And you feel it - but to others, you're acting funny, or thinking irrationally, or you're just plain weird, because they can't feel what you feel. When I'm low, I can't focus - even simple tasks such as trying to write something to someone have to be set down for later because the words I mean to transcribe fly right out of my head. Try as I might to catch them, they slip away, farther and farther away until they are distant echoes of my consciousness.
This low was different, too. I went to bed, as usual - I'd been low before bed (72, so not bad) so had a snack and then went off to sleep. I wake up at some time during the night undisclosed to me - I don't know the time, I don't look, I just know that it's dark and quiet and IcanfeelthatI'mlow but I do not test.
I'm tired.
I want to go back to sleep.
But... I'm low.
I should test, I mumble blearily to myself. Go... get something to eat, I will my body.
But sleep feels so good. I pull the cover up over my head and sink deeper into the pillow. Mmm, it can wait til morning, I think, irrationally. You think but it doesn't always make sense when you're low. When I'm sleepy, I think a lot of things that don't make sense, too. I roll over and doze off. Somewhere in my subconsciousness I knew, just knew that it was imperative that I wake up and go eat something. If I didn't, I could fall even lower, and then I might die.
Maybe that seems overdramatic, but when you live with Diabetes, you live on the edge of constant close calls every day. You live on the edge of panic - like walking on a cliff edge, and one stumble can topple you. I have Diabetes - I have my meter - insulin - test strips - I'm prepared. No big deal.
And then life happens.
You forget to put an extra insulin pen in your purse and you're away from home, far away, traveling for the day.
You just used your last test strip and neglected to put in extra strips in your meter bag...
You're low and in an unfamiliar place, and realize you have no snack.
Suddenly, your sense of security, which turns out to be false after all, flies out the window. You panic - you're blind - as though you're in a car behind the steering wheel and someone has covered your eyes and you can't see where you're going or where you're headed and you're confused and don't know what to do and you're powerless.
Maybe you think, "well, those are all really stupid. You shouldn't ever forget those things - they're important after all." And that's true. It is stupid. But how many times have you left the house and forgotten something? Are in a rush to get somewhere? Get lost in life? It happens to all of us yes, even Diabetics - because on top of all of the things I have to do for my normal life, my Diabetes life is there, life a separate life on top of my existing one, and I have to make time that I don't have to take care of it, too. I'm running late for class? Guess I'll have to check my sugar eat my breakfast and give insulin in the car. Need to test but I'm running late for work? Too bad. I'm low and I'm entertaining at a party - that's a fun one. Bottom line: you have to make time for Diabetes, but Diabetes doesn't make time for you. It's constant, never relenting, always there. No break. Ever.
But that's a tangent - I startle awake again, after what might have been 30 seconds or 30 minutes, for all I know. The low is humming in my consciousness still, I'm sweat-drenched, hot, my body is tensed and shaking, my limbs feel like Jello and my mind is once again blank fuzz, like static on the TV. My mind knows what I should do but doesn't want to act and my body doesn't want to listen. There's a distinct lapse between what I tell my body to do and when my body actually decides to do it, as though every movement I make is me trying to walk in the ocean near the shore against the waves, and they're pummeling me, and they're throwing me back, pushing me, further away from where I need to go, not letting me move how I want to.
But this time I roll over, out of the bed, in the dark, I don't test, I just know I'm low and need food and I stumble through the dark until I'm in the kitchen and I've grabbed a bar of ice cream and I'm eating it, and I'm low so I just want to eat the entire kitchen so I get out the chips and salsa and ketchup and I'm sitting on the floor eating because I don't have the strength to stand myself up and ---
This is what my life has come to, I think, in my bitter, cranky and clouded hypoglycemia mind. The haze of the low is still settled over me like a film, clouding my senses but making me hyper aware of the panic my body is in as my brain searches for sugar and isn't finding enough to give me energy - but the anger is sharp, not dull, and I'm mad, because I don't want to be on the floor eating stupid ice cream because I went to work out that evening which was stupid because I'd gone at 9:00 PM and this was a delayed low from that and I was so frustrated and I was even scared because I almost had gone back to sleep and hadn't woken myself up to go treat my low and could have gone back to sleep and never woken up like others with my disease have done before me. I hated it. Nor had I ever done that before - just fallen back asleep nonchalantly. Lows were EMERGENCIES. Not something you tell yourself to go back to sleep for. Stupid. Stupid! You could have killed yourself! I thought angrily.
When I had the strength to stand again, I set the kitchen back in order and then walked slowly, resignedly back to my room to sleep. It was only 2:36 a.m. I was angry, but I tried to console myself: the important thing, I tried to remind myself, was that I had woken up and I had treated and today was World Diabetes Day (11/14), in which we Diabetics try to hope that enough people will care someday and keep trying and trying and trying.... so that maybe someday, I can eat a sandwich. Just eat a sandwich. No testing, no insulin. So I can sleep easy without worrying about my sugar. So that I don't feel the guilt of a high... so we can all be normal... someday. We dream, we live, we rejoice, we cope, we suffer, we falter, we try - we are imperfect human beings trying to live our difficult lives and be a pancreas at the same time. It's hard. We'll keep trying. We'll keep living through little battles such as these. And, always, we'll keep hoping for a miracle - the seemingly impossible, the dream of a dream. A cure. Always and forever, hoping for a cure.
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