Last night was strange, I actually posted after midnight here. That is because Stan was having a sugar crisis. Here is basically how a low sugar crisis is here….it is so so very scary. Yes, SCARY!
It is 10:30. I am at my computer, but very easily could have been designated driving. That got canceled which is a good thing.
He called down through the vents if I could bring him some water. This is strange because he can walk. I am thinking to myself “Get Your Own Water”. I know sometimes he has trouble though and am also thinking that he might think he will fall in the dark. I go up and get a glass of water for him. I turn on the lights and look at him.
He is sweating, I don’t mean a little sweat. I mean the bed sheets are soaked enough to be rung out like a towel accidentally dropped into bath water.
I head for the glucose meter. It tests 48, which is low, but not extreme. I know that it is dropping though from the way he is acting and all that sweat.
I got him 2 glucose tablets and a bowl of pears. He likes pears.
He is heading out of it now as his sugar drops quickly when it starts going down. I wait 20 minutes though and test it again. It is 34 which is extremely low.
He is swinging his arms now like an ape. He has both hands up above his head and he is swinging at random. He is screaming “Oh Dear” and laughing. I do mean screaming….I think the house was shaking. I was surprised Kyra didn’t wake up thinking what the hell is going on. She was at the other end of the house though and downstairs.
He kept doing this, but he doesn’t know what he is doing and I know it. I am pretty much freaking out. I am 1/2 scared he is going to slug me.
I also know that he has had enough sugar to raise his levels. I go downstairs for safety and listen for him to stop doing this. He shortly does, well maybe 10 minutes.
I go back upstairs and he has no recollection of what he just did a few minutes ago. I know he is telling the truth as I have seen these with him quite a few times.
I test his sugar it is 43, but rising. The rising is a huge difference compared to 48 and falling.
I get him a sippy cup of orange juice. Yes…sippy cup like I use for Kyra. He is in bed and will spill a glass everywhere. He is getting better, but still not 100% in control.
About 5 minutes later, I get him a piece of cake with icing. I actually get one for myself too. Cake yum… I sit with Stan in his room with him in his underwear, not a suggested viewing by the way. We eat cake.
He goes back to bed. I come downstairs and post about some idiot bus driver who shouldn’t be driving that had just hit my inbox. I stayed up an hour. I went back up and tested his sugar in that hour. He didn’t even wake up to know I was testing it. His levels was 115.
I came down and went to bed. I was exhausted, but glad that I was home for all this.
His sugar was only 180 in the morning after all that sugar I gave him during the night. (2 glucose tablets, pears, orange juice, and cake with icing) Each of those items is considered a sugar serving with a meal and he only has 2 sugar servings per meal. I have no idea why it takes so much for his sugar to rise when it drops like this. The doctors say to only give 3 sugar servings when it is low.
If you have never experienced diabetes you may wonder what causes all this. Diabetes is a balancing act of eating the amount of carbs needed versus taking the amount of insulin that your body needs to absorb the carbs (if you take insulin there are other medicines too).
Stan is taking too much insulin, but not because it was always too much. He is losing weight and eating correctly. His body is functioning at a higher degree by itself than it did when he first moved here.
That was May 19th. When he moved here, he was taking 340 units of insulin per day. He is now over 60 pounds lighter and takes less than 90 units of insulin per day which we will be lowering this week. He has a doctors appointment on Thursday…I think it is.
In the meantime, he will be eating a few extra carbs with his last meal of the day to balance off the insulin that he doesn’t seem to be needing now.
Diabetes is rough and scary and hard to watch even as a bi-stander when it acts out. I can’t imagine how rough it is to have this controlling your body and everything you do. If you have Diabetes, I have the utmost respect for how you live and are able to control this sometimes uncontrollable disease.