Shoot Up or Put Up

Nectar of the gods!

By Samantha

The dreaded hypo’s are back. Uh-oh. Man the barricades. When I have bad hypos, I turn into something like the monster from the black lagoon, all growly, pale and nasty. And over the past week or so, I’ve been having some rather nasty ones in the vein of at least two a day whereupon my poor other half has to pour copious amounts of apple juice down my throat.

Yesterday, we decided to go shopping. And the supermarket we decided on was about a half hour walk away. Fifteen minutes down the road, I start noticing some weirdness going on with my eyes. Then the legs start shaking and the words start slurring.

“I dunt feel fery well…”

I’m trying to get my point across to my other half in the middle of a very busy street. Things are blurry and the world is spinning, and he laughs at me for a moment before making me sit on a wall and making me check my blood sugar.

“Oh dear…I think you need some sugar”

With eyes that seem to be making the world jump around and have a crazy party, I see the number on my meter. 1.6mmol/L. And silly little hypo me starts panicking and, with what must have been rather funny for any passers-by, I tip my handbag all over the pavement. My purse starts rolling away, my gloves flop uselessly on the pavement and various receipts start flying away. In my lack of sugar state, I’m trying to find myself some glucotabs. And I can’t. There is nothing in my handbag.

And then, to make matters just that tad more embarrassing. I start crying. My poor other half helps me put my things back in my handbag before helping me to my feet. Something is muttered about always making sure I have something on me, how come this time I don’t. So our next mission, should we choose to accept it, is to find me some juice. I’m muttering all the way to co-op about wanting juice.

“I want some juice. I need it. I’m soooooooooo hungrrryyyyyyyy”

It earns me yet more funny looks, but I stumble on with a grin. And then, I magically find some chocolate in my coat pocket. And it’s good chocolate, half a bar of Thorntons milk chocolate. It’s thrown in my mouth with the fervour of someone who hasn’t eaten in days. And then the hunger starts. My tummy rumbles so loud that my other half looks at me with raised eyebrows, “Hungry honey?”

I fall into Co-Op, and mutter something to the employee stood at the counter “I need juice. Where’s your juice?”

He points me in the right direction. And I see the biggest drinkable bottle of juice in history. It’s huge. And it’s shining at me, like gold. DRINK ME. DRIIINNNKKK MEEEE. So I grab it, and in the process end up knocking half of the other bottles over with a crash. But I don’t care; I rush over to the counter, drop a pound on the side and start chugging that sweet, sweet orange juice. The cashier is looking at me funny, and I grin at him.

“Diabetic” I say with a goofy grin, “Hypo diabetic. Not good. Need juice”

He just smiles and nods and I go back outside. The world is coming into focus by now; after all I’ve just polished off 500ml of orange juice. And that’s when I start feeling like a prat.

“Seriously…how much did I embarrass myself there?” I ask my other half.

He just looks at me with a grin and shrugs, no answer given. It’s probably best for him not to tell me I think, as we make our way around to the supermarket, where I still want to eat everything.

—————

Samantha is Type One and regularly blogs at http://www.talkingbloodglucose.com/

Pretty sweet

For the last few days I’ve been suffering from a slightly sore back. Nothing so bad as to make me retreat to lie on a hard wooden floor or be tortured by a chiropractor; but enough to slightly annoy me.

You’ll no doubt be thrilled to discover that I soon traced the problem. Being pancreatically challenged (as you’re no doubt aware) I carry a funky man bag with me wherever I go to transport my diabetic-supplies and miscellaneous other guff I need to live on a daily basis. Needless to say, being a Good Diabetic, amongst this stuff I always have a small cache of sweets in case of an inopportune hypo.

Speaking of which, I wonder if it’s possible to get an opportune hypo? I suppose hypos could be feigned to get out of awkward situations – for example, blind dates where your expectations haven’t exactly been met; a smelly, fat guy coming to sit next to you on the bus; or arrest by angry armed thugs and countless other socially difficult circumstances. Thinking about it, I really should try it sometime.

Anyway, I’ve been pretty busy recently so every time I’ve been rushing out the house I’ve automatically picked up another handful of Fruit Pastilles and shoved them in my bag. Fortunately, my levels have been grand and I haven’t had need of everyone’s favourite hypo cure. This has had the results that I’ve now built up the world’s largest supply of Fruit Pastilles (pictured above) which I’ve consequently been lugging about for days and days and which must have caused my sore back – they do actually weigh a suprisingly large amount.

So this is yet another of the myriad hidden costs of diabetes – sore backs from carting hypo cures around. At least I don’t carry great bottles of Lucozade around like I used to; but still, I curse you God of the Pancreas! *shakes fist at heavens*

Ambulances queuing up to not treat diabetics

Regular commentator and blogger extraordinaire Mark drew my attention to a recent article on the BBC web site in which it was reported an ambulance man in sunny Liverpool decided that a diabetic woman who collapsed on a bus with a hypo was in fact utterly “drunk” and refused to treat her.

Happily the moronic, cretinous ambulance man in question resigned before he was fired and has since been struck off the register of health professionals. According to the BBC the industrial tribunal ruled that this imbecilic, dozy, twit-trained eejit failed to check the blood sugar level of the woman and then compounded his error by lying to his control room, claiming she was refusing treatment.

The report reminded me of the story a few years ago in which a diabetic commuter on a bus in Leeds was shot by police with a Taser gun. Twice.  The subnormal, dopey, doltish, dense underdeveloped brains of the policemen in question thought that the man posed a security threat. Admittedly, the poor man was sweating profusely and clutching a large rucksack not long after the London bombings.

Both you and I know that hypos are not the most pleasant things, but to have that misery compounded by a recalcitrant ambulance man or being shot with a bloody Taser of all things is hardly helpful.

While fortunately, such episodes of subnormal, underdeveloped, brainless, unthinking idiocy are rare it does demonstrate even those who should know better do clearly hate diabetics. Bastards!

Anyway, in other news utterly unrelated to diabetes, I’ve discovered wonderour Intermaweb music service Spotify and have been listening to Johann Johannson while writing articles this evening. His composition The Rocket Builder (Io Pan!) is particularly great! Just thought you might be interested.

For years I’ve had a nasty habit that scares and un-nerves my closest relatives. At first they were completely baffled by it, then they came to understand it and have now developed some coping strategies.

I coped fine with my diabetes at university. My housemates were great about not eating my emergency food, they picked up the pieces on the odd occassion there was an alcohol/food/insulin/sleep miscalculation and I didn’t really have any serious problems. I just got on with it.

The problems started in the holidays. Everytime I came home from uni I’d go hypo. Not just a bit low. Proper, need help hypo. I pondered insulin doses, changes in activity levels, sleeping patterns, diet etc but nothing really seemed to explain it. Then the parents spotted the problem. I wasn’t reacting to feeling low. I’d just ignore it. When I look back, I remember sitting in my parents house numerous times thinking “I feel low” but not doing anything about it. I was just waiting for someone else to deal with it.

And even now, if I’m at home with the husband my CGMS alarm always wakes him before me. I can ignore it for ages. Yet if I’m alone, I hear the alarm pretty much as soon as it goes off.

When I’m alone my self-preservation instinct is strong. I react to what my diabetes is telling me and ignoring a hypo wouldn’t even cross my mind. But put me somewhere I feel safe, surrounded by people who love me and know how to cope with a hypo and I take a break. It appears that I subconsciously relinquish diabetes responsibility to those that I trust.

At some point it appears my brain decided it couldn’t cope with the 24/7 nature of diabetes and would therefore take leave whenever the opportunity presented itself. Unfortunatley my brain isn’t a very considerate co-worker. It doesn’t schedule the leave or brief the people who are meant to be covering while it relaxes for a while. It just wanders off leaving a trail of diabetes chaos behind it. Thankfully my habit has been spotted and the family keep a watchful eye for ignored lows.

We think controlling diabetes is all about insulin, but I think we underestimate the power of the mind.

I foolishly thought the one certainty in diabetes was the way I feel when I’m hypo. It appears I’m a fool to have thought that.

When I was little, a hypo was a “funny tummy”. That strange feeling I couldn’t quite put my finger on, but I knew wasn’t right.

As a teenager that progressed to an understanding of symptoms – feeling weak, sweating and feeling inexplicably confused and frustrated.

That’s been the norm for years, but recently it seems to be changing. Hypos have gone to my legs. The last few times I’ve been low my thighs have gone numb. My hips and above are fine, as are my knees and below, but for some reason my thighs are numb! That makes walking a little interesting.

My head is doing something different too. The last few times I’ve been low I’ve got halfway through a sentence and not been able to finish it. Or I’ve been trying to explain something really simple and my brain and my mouth won’t cooperate. Once I’ve had my sugar hit and I think back, I’m pretty sure I was talking rubbish for about 10 minutes before I started being unable to finish sentences. This is pretty embarrassing (especially when it happened when I met Tim and was unable to articulate the benefits of an artificial pancreas without the help of fruit pastilles!).

And then there’s the final weird thing. I never used to be able to remember hypos but now I can. Not 100% clearly, but much clearer than I ever could.

It appears that I’m blessed with good hypo warning signs, but because we wouldn’t want diabetes to be boring, they’re different to what they used to be. It all adds to the sense of adventure I suppose!

Back by popular demand, my wife Katie writes about living with the spectre of hypos. -Tim

It has been said to me on a number of occasions – “Katie we can set our watches by your stomach”. At 12noon that’s it, lunch time, there’s no stopping me reaching for my sandwiches or popping to Marks and Spencer’s for a treat. The feeling of hunger sets in big time and there’s nothing for it, but to feed the hungry monster.

So having a physical job, running and lifting things around before lunch can often make me feel light headed, making it harder to concentrate, and I start to feel a bit shaky and generally the enthusiasm goes and all I want to do is eat. So, as you all know and have experienced, it’s a hypo. My body is lacking in sugars and the energy just goes.

As a non-diabetic my pancreas controls the amount of insulin it pumps in to my body throughout the day depending on how manic or lazy I am being, so it is quite rare for me to have a hypo.  If I do have one it tends to be before lunch or dinner, however, for a diabetic it can be any time through the day or night.

Being married to Tim [Yay! -Tim] I have got to understand how a diabetic body works, I understand how different things can trigger a hypo and affect the way the body functions, which are much more visible and obvious for a diabetic.

Hypos are not nice to have but at least I know my pancreas is working away in the background to help out a bit. For the majority of times Tim does know when he is going to be having a hypo, if I have dragged him round John Lewis shoe department for a bit too long, done a high energy gardening session or if he injects a bit too early for dinner time.  I am often there to help reach for the Lucozade and Fruit Pastilles but he thankfully gets it sorted before it gets too dangerous.

Hypos are obviously serious things to have, but the body is also very clever in giving out warning signs to you. I am not here to preach to anyone but I know from lifting Tim’s bag he has his stash of sugary goodness in there ready for action. As the Girl Guides say always be prepared.

I suppose there is one good thing too being married to a diabetic –the sweetie cupboard is always stocked up very well. Now, when is my next appointment at the dentists…?

A scantily clad lady in a lurid magazine, yesterday

We quite often talk about the downsides of diabetes – the problems with hypos, sight issues and legs rotting off with gangrene. But a recent headline in Scotland’s daily rag The Herald gave me renewed hope – “Diabetes sufferer sacked from school wins back job“.

As an aside, the Scottish press is world-renowned for its quality reporting. The famous Aberdeen-based Press & Journal is celebrated for its huge bias towards local issues at the expense of world events. It’s perhaps apocryphal, but the day the Titanic sank in 1912 the Press & Journal apparently reported the disaster with the headline “Aberdeenshire Man Drowned At Sea”. Even more recently, only one week after the 9/11 attacks the paper’s World News section totalled just a single half page.

Anyway, I digress. In essence the story here is that a teacher in an Edinburgh school was fired for bashing-the-bishop (add your favourite masturbatory euphemism in the comments section below!) over some soft core porn on the web – apparently the Maxim magazine web site of all places.

Nevertheless, the teacher in question denied the allegations and took his former employers to an industrial tribunal. Attesting on his behalf, his doctor said his behaviour “could have been caused by hypoglycaemia…symptoms [of which] include memory loss, atypical and automatic behaviour.” Apparently he had been taking the “wrong strength of insulin at the time” and this, he alleged, could have contributed to the likelihood of him being hypoglycaemic.

This excuse was accepted and the teacher got his job back and was awarded some compensation for his troubles.

His explanation is obviously complete and utter nonsense – I think the last thing you would do when suffering from a hypo would be to log on to a lurid website and burp the worm. But it does give me hope that there is an upside to diabetes – we have a fantastic excuse for pretty much everything!

“Why have you stolen all those pens from the stationary cupboard, Brown?” “Sorry sir, I was having a hypo”.

“You’re driving a stolen car again, Brown!” “Sorry officer, I was having a hypo”.

“Brown! Why did you organise that military coup in that central-African country and resume the trade of conflict diamonds?” “Sorry Prime Minister, I was having a hypo”.

So it seems there’s just no situation where you can’t play the diabetes card. Fantastic! Excuse me while I go and rob my local bank!

The Daily Herald

Scorchio!

Edinburgh is currently suffering from a heat wave. No, really. Honestly it’s true. Sometimes in Scotland the cloud, rain, drizzle and sleet briefly clear to allow through a little bit of sun and occasionally the temperature gets into double figures.

While I’m enjoying the smell of molten tarmac that wafts through my office windows, and at home the gentle scent of burning chicken as my neighbours all rush out to use their badly neglected and rusty barbecue sets, I’m having slight problems with my diabetes.

Generally with a higher body temperature you will, of course, absorb insulin more quickly and so I tend to have a slightly higher frequency of hypos during the summer months. It’s pretty easy to deal with – I just shove in a bit less humalog and everyone’s happy.

It does, however, remind me of the time I went to the sauna. Now, I’m not talking about a seedy “sauna” where people go for “massages”, I’m talking about a very fancy spa and health club in Edinburgh. A few years ago, as a special treat for us, my wife organised a spa afternoon the day before we got married – a chance for the two of us to get away from the relatives for a few hours and chill out before the big day ahead. Absolutely heavenly!

As I went into the spa complex, with its dry and wet saunas, heated seats and outdoor swimming pools (one’s outside on the roof and you can look into people’s offices in the building next door while you paddle about – what fun!) I noticed a small sign warning those with medical problems – such as diabetes – that the spa wasn’t suitable for them. “Danger”, it said in big, red letters.

“What rubbish”, I thought to myself as we relaxed and put another ladle of cold water onto the hot stove. Like every good diabetic, I’d stuck a few tubes of Glucostop gel into my swimming short pockets. Each tube supplies 40g of fast acting glucose and is usually enough to raise you up from the lowest hypo.

However an hour and three Glucostops later my BG was rapidly dropping and I was enjoying the severe hypo symptoms we all know and love. I quickly made my escape, got changed and when Katie met me afterwards in the café I was eating the sugar cubes on the table with the avidity of a horse who’s not afraid of dentists.

But, as always, I recovered quickly and we whisked ourselves off to our wedding rehearsal and we lived to tell the tale. However, since then I’ve always regarded saunas with a massive degree of suspicion mixed with a healthy dollop of sheer terror. So that’s sauna-friendly Finland off my holiday list, but with Scotland so glorious at the minute, who cares?

…thankfully didn’t get a visit from me. A quick update following last Wednesday’s post. The brief version is that insulin pumps and CGMS are wonderful things and at this moment I won’t hear a word against them. Now for the slightly longer version.

On Wednesday evening I stopped taking the evil drugs that were making me need insulin by the bucket. Then I prepared my ropes for a challenging abseil down from the dizzy glucose heights I’ve been frequenting for the past week.

I’d feared a catastrophic plummet down into the Valley of the Hypos where zombies walk freely and glucogel slime oozes down the streets. Where you’re constantly in a cold sweat, your legs are made of blancmange and your body is no longer under your own control.

I secured my safety line by reducing my basal rates down to my pre-drugs level and stopped doubling all carb boluses. Next step was to stake out the low. On Thursday morning I sat quietly, armed with juice box mortars and fruit pastille grenades waiting for the anticipated hypo to sneak up at any time.

My CGMS was never far from my side, I felt like a fighter pilot constantly scanning the radar for incoming attack of the low blood sugar variety.

Then it came. At first a gentle decline, soon gathering pace. I checked my ammo:

• Basal rate reduced – check
• No insulin on board – check
• Verify CGMS reading with finger prick – check
• More sugar on stand-by than I could possibly need – check

The downward trend slowed but continued. I fired a warning shot across the bows and ate an apple. The trend slowed further. At 4.7 with no insulin on board I had my finger on the trigger of the juice box mortar but held my fire. I’ll give that incoming low 20 minutes to turn round and retreat, or else its both barrels with the juice box.

CGMS started to creep upwards giving me scores like a mediocre ice dancing competitor – 4.7, 4.7, 4.8, 5. Success! The Valley of the Hypos will not be receiving visitors today.