(This screenshot isn’t from this event, just another double arrows down kind of day.)
Low Blood Sugar Gone Wild
Low blood sugar can and does happen in some uncanny places; take my experience yesterday for instance. This particular low happened in a most fortuitous place – the grocery store. In hindsight, I should’ve seen this coming – but who’s to think a low blood sugar hitting like a freight train around a blind corner is coming at you.
Truth be told, my background story doesn’t matter. Diabetes doesn’t discriminate with its occasional punishing blows. It’s hard to explain this process to other people (many will judge and think it’s your fault); it’s in this elemental explanation – the seed of why I worry about my daughter and myself in multiple scenarios: overnight, during PE at school, on hikes in the back country and everywhere in between. This is exactly why I bring enough food for a family of four to survive a week when we play outdoors.
Type 1 diabetes certainly won’t keep me on the couch.
You Never Know
I shake my fist at you Type 1 diabetes. Sometimes that’s all we’re left to do – because we’ve controlled all of the controllables.
This ridiculousness behind the grocery cart came on the heels of a 45 mile ride the day before. (Should I mention my blood sugars were perfect during the entire ride?)
It’s summer and my activity levels have been off the charts. With a fall goal in the works for a century ride (100 miles), you don’t have to look beyond my odd leg tan to know I’ve been spending a lot of time in the saddle.
Regardless, I was peacefully and meticulously making my way through the grocery store when I started to feel a little low. This is usually my sign to take a quick peek at my continuous glucose monitor (CGM) and verify what’s going on. It turns out I was 80 with a slanted arrow down on my Dexcom, so I started to dig through my purse for something sweet.
Before I knew it, I was quickly starting to feel really low and decided to throw a giant bag of peach rings in my cart. With Lady Luck on my side in a low blood sugar stupor, I landed where I needed to be – ‘the candy section – aisle 8′.
The Aisle Matters
I only had a few things left on my list and normally could’ve held my blood sugar up with the contents in my purse; unfortunately, today was not that kind of day. I had a grocery list that I was hellbent on getting through, so I found myself in the dog food aisle demolishing most of the peach rings – that incidentally were grossing me out. I can happily eat a few, but not an entire bag.
By the way, the dog food aisle isn’t such a bad place to recover from a low – with minimal foot traffic and few stares.
That CGM of mine was still saying 60, but I knew I was much lower. I busted out my glucometer and when ’32′ flashed on the screen I must say I wasn’t surprised. I draped myself over the front of the shopping cart wishing my girls were with me as they usually were – not this time, I was braving this low by myself with a few hundred bags of dog food.
I thought about sitting on the ground or finding a seat at the pharmacy in case I had a seizure. I know I was very close. I opted instead to stay put (I was in no condition to move) quietly begging the sugar to kick in.
Check Out
I willed myself to look at my shopping list but couldn’t make sense of it and decided my trip was over – what I had was what I would go home with. I started getting my wits about me and knew the next thing to come was a bath in my own sweat; the second gift of a very low blood sugar if you’re really lucky.
Looking like I just completed a 10 mile run in the blazing heat rather than experiencing a low blood sugar on a shopping stroll, I looked down at myself and was thankful for what I saw – workout clothes from my morning’s hike. If nothing else, it made the sweat attributable to something more normal and relatable to others.
I decided to hand pick a cashier that may not even look at me, but got called out to another empty lane. I thought about explaining the empty bag of candy (that I obviously ate) or the gross amounts of sweat, but decided he didn’t care any more than I did to explain it.
With my CGM beeping high I had another problem on my hands – overeating from a low and a liver slow to kick in beating me to death with all its sugary might.