Mom. Daughter. Sister. Wife. Friend. Diabetic. I wear a lot of hats (don’t we all?)
Diabetes isn’t usually the loudest one – my kids pay absolutely zero attention to me injecting and testing my blood sugar, and their only feeling towards diabetes is a vague resentment that the juice box I constantly have next to my bed in case of emergencies isn’t for them.
But some days – like yesterday – diabetes takes centre stage. I had a weekend of persistently higher blood sugar, but wrote it off as the result of me being gloriously sedentary and snacking more than usual… Till yesterday morning when I realized my insulin just wasn’t working. At all.
I switched it out for a new pen, went for a walk and ate dinner, fully expecting things to go back to normal. And instead my blood sugar went through the roof… The insulin wasn’t working, and it kept climbing higher and higher.
One of the tricky things about high blood sugar is that your head feels foggy and thick, which makes it hard to figure out why your blood sugar is high, and what to do about it. Insulin also takes 2 hours or so to take full effect, so there’s an inevitable (frustrating) waiting period.
I eventually switched out my brand new insulin pen for another one (thank heavens for spares!) and my blood sugar quickly came down. I started feeling human again after a while… But it was a rough couple of hours.
Not least because of the fear – deep and visceral – that the new insulin pen wouldn’t work either. And then what?!
I don’t often think about how serious Type 1 diabetes is. But every so often it hits me that the only thing keeping me alive is insulin. And if that insulin’s cold chain has been invisibly broken, I’m in real trouble.
On the flip side, can you imagine the joy of an ordinary blood sugar day today? The sweet profound relief of medication doing what it’s supposed to do! Blissful.
Sometimes a slice of joy is a return to normal. I’ll take it, with thanks.
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