Wednesday, July 05, 2006

The Day: Sunday, July 2.
The Time: 11 am.
The scene: Nic is in the kitchen. Her blood sugar is 61. She is shaking, and hot, and more symtomatic than she has been in a long time. Her heart is racing. She has had some juice, but feels it is imperative that she have a ham and cheese sandwich, now.

But first she needs the cheese slicer. She looks under the sink, where some dishes are stored, and starts rooting through them. She looks in the pile of dirty dishes on the counter. She clangs some silverware and bangs around some plates as she looks, frantically but ineffectually. Tears are streaming down her cheeks.

"I'll do the dishes later," her husband says. He sits placidly on the couch.

She is sobbing as she takes out a plate (as she is unable to find the cutting board either) and grabs a knife and starts to saw at the cheese.

"I don't care about the dishes. I need the cheese slicer and I cant' find it. This is why" (deep, snotty, self-pitying breath) "I don't like us [read: you] to pile the dishes like this. I can't find anything." She glares at self-satisfied husband as he refuses to comfort her in her temper tantrum.

The cheese won't cut, a combination of a very dull knife and an uncordinated Nic. It is all hubby's fault.

She throws the cheese into its drawer and kicks the door shut. Sobs as she grabs a knife and bread and slaps on peanut butter. Glares at her husband the whole time. Wishes he knew what it felt like. Inhales the sandwich, very unhappy that it is not ham and cheese, the only real remedy to this egregious low, and sits back down.

It's funny now, but this was the scariest low I have ever had. I am rarely emotional with lows, and I was a mess with this one. And I was 61, not 30 -- which, incidentally, I don't usualy feel and have thus far (but not holding my breath) been fully capable of dealing with in a rational manner.

5 comments:

Sandra Miller said...

Nic,

Reading this, I was so afraid you were going to cut yourself with that knife... Phew!

I'm wondering if you might have been falling fast-- that's usually the case when Joseph gets really emotional during a low, but the meter shows him in the 60s. We'll look at his last check, and nine times out of ten he's riding a steep downward curve.

Though the number isn't scary, the symptoms definitely are.

Glad you're okay.

Anonymous said...

What can I say????!! Except maybe dito. OFTEN I totally fall apart emotionally when I have hypos....... As Sandra said, it is not always the number but the speed with which the bg is falling that affects me.

One always assumes that all other diabetics react similarly, and we all know that is completely wrong. But still your heart tells you they MUST react as I do! I fall apart emotionally all the time, several times a week. I have two choices: 1.aim for tight control and that means hypos, and I do not mean once a week! or 2. "not so tight control" and this , at least for me, means yoyo bg levels. I cannot fine a happy medium. So I live with the hypos. The "not so tight control" ALSO makes me feel like SHIT and SUPER DEPRESSED!

One could write a whole lot about our poor spouses/families' who have to live with us. But are they perfect? This is just one of my minus points.

You have to look on the light side - some hypos are so funny that your life becomes "richer" from them. I have spent 20 minutes staring up at the old art-nouveau houses in Brussels and thinking that they were so beautiful against the feathery clouds and blue skyes...... Now every time I pass this spot I clearly remeber the beauty I saw. My husband remebers that I would NOT go home and WOULD NOT ADMIT it was a hypo! What I call "staring", he perceives as "glaring". But I enjoy that spot more after the hypo than before. I also remeber wondering HOW to walk up stairs???!!! JUST HOW DO YOU GET UP THEM??? Or how do you get a key to go into a keyhole and turn and open the door. I appreciate all these things when I compare them to how impossible these things can be if you just do not comprehend how they function.

ME TOO, I get starving with hypos, but then I KNOW I must measure the right amount of coke and so I can walk all the way home if I am without coke...... Really stupid!

But don't you have some funny hypos? At least funny for you, although maybe not for your husband!

Major Bedhead said...

Maybe it's just the overprotective mother side of me, but how come your husband didn't try to help? Did he not know what was going on?

Nic said...

He didn't know what was going on. I'm usually really in control of my lows and have to tell him I'm low or he can't tell. He's also very good about helping me out when I need it. This low was an anomaly all around.

Major Bedhead said...

Ah, ok then. I was ready to give him heck. Nevermind. :D