The remnants

I’ve been having one of those nights now for about a week. You see, I changed my birth control pill about a month ago, and this has wreaked havoc on my BGs. The ebb and flow of insulin resistance that this new balance of hormones has brought to my life, frankly, sucks. By day, I am living on temporary basal rates of 150% to 200%. And by night, it’s just me and the late night talk shows, stalking low blood sugars with juice, cereal, and cookies.

I was dreaming that my company had restructured and I’d been moved from my home in the development department to a new home in the marketing department. And my new officemates, marketing and sales people, could not understand what I did or how I brought value to the company. So I kept trying to explain why technical writing is important, and what, exactly, I did all day. And they kept saying, “Oh, so you do this?” and I would say, “No, it’s more like this.” And back and forth we went. And the more frustrated I became, the harder it became to explain my worth to them. I woke up sweating, near tears, and dizzy. This low was hard to identify because I have been struggling with similar issues at work. Feeling underappreciated and misunderstood, and struggling to find some like-minded co-workers. But when I finally got that meter case open and the strip in the meter, it turned out that my sugar was down to 35. Wow.

A glass of juice and a bowl of raisin bran later, I was creeping up on 70, so I thought it was safe to turn out the light. But the BG fairies were not in agreement. An hour later I was 52. Another glass of juice, and I was back in bed.

Another hour later and Lukas was crying. He was teething and needed some comfort. I did another test for good measure, and saw a 56 winking back at me. Son of a bitch. I slurped down another glass of juice and set a temp basal of 0% for two hours before running up stairs to comfort Lukas, juice sloshing uncomfortably at the top of my stomach.

Back in bed, I couldn’t believe it when the alarm went off just two hours later. And wouldn’t you know it, my sugar was 187. I corrected and set a temp basal of 200% because I knew that those morning hormones were going to send this number through the roof. Tired, and fighting a low-induced hangover, I tried to swallow that sticky, low aftertaste from my mouth. I jumped in the shower to get ready for another day of roller coasters.

But it’s not until I was on my way out of the house, in the kitchen, that I really stopped and thought about how trying these last couple of nights have been. I’d been on autopilot, testing and treating and testing again. It wasn’t until I saw the remnants that I realize just what I’d been through: an open box of raisin bran spilled on the counter. A trail of juice on the floor from the refrigerator to the cupboard (where I must have spilled it in my 35 mg/dL stupor.) Rings of milk on the counter from the measuring cup where I (tried to) carefully measure out a cup for my raisin bran. Cookie crumbs and plastic wrappers piled high near the sink (where did those come from? I don’t even remember eating those!)

I sighed, grabbed my laptop, and headed out the door. Maybe today will be better.

Explore posts in the same categories: Emotional Health

Tags: diabetes, low blood sugar

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