Bad night requires busy day

There I was, trying to think through the chaos. My mind sought logic and was only wading into frustrating muddle. The mind is racing and trying to negotiate its way through a swamp of ridiculousness. Thoughts fold back on themselves and won’t let my dream proceed to the next level or to anything recognizable or understandable, which dreams, absurd as they can be, usually offer. There is usually some story line in a dream. This was like a Picasso-gone-mad image. Stuck in a mental puzzle that keeps getting crazier and more frustrating. My otherwise reason-seeking brain is now beginning to fall victim to -- and this is the amazing thing – to chaos of its own creation.

And then it happened. Suddenly I began waking from this blur. I found myself standing beside my bed. I had glucose tablets in my mouth. I was wringing wet with sweat and still fuzzy-brained about what had happened.

Indeed, wife Suellen was on the other side of the bed, coiled like a cobra and sternly telling me to chew and swallow and return to reality. She has experienced this enough times to be concerned at first but angered after I come to. She gets as mad as I get embarrassed and self-loathing when hypoglycemic – low blood sugar reactions – occurs. And while I rarely have them nowadays while awake, hypoglycemia does catch up with me occasionally while asleep.

Normal blood sugar is 80 to 100 mg/dL. Hypoglycemia is considered a threat at any reading under 70. I probably was in the low 40s or lower when Suellen took action after finding me perspiring profusely and convulsing.

The pillow and the sheets were wet.

When I came to my senses, I dried off, changed the sweat-through clothes and then I tested. I was 59 now. Still considerably low – too low to return to bed. So I headed downstairs and ate several shortbread cookies. I like to be less than 100 while asleep, but now I was content to be a little high.

But when I woke up the next morning, having been cold all night from all the heat I had lost through sweating, I felt restless and a bit ill and headachy from the ordeal hours earlier, I arose and tested. Now I was a whopping 285. That’s to say now I was rebounding. My understanding of what occurs is that when the body requires sugar with none available in the blood to balance out excessive insulin, the live and internal organs dump stored sugar into the bloodstream as a last-ditch life-saving measure. The organs are like miniature EMTs coming to the rescue. And, for me, that rebounding continues throughout most of the day after the hypoglycemic episode.

Now awake, I took a big shot of Novolog insulin as well as my regular shot of long-acting Levemir insulin. Under normal conditions, the Novolog would have lowered my sugar to below 100 so that I could eat breakfast and go on with my day. But after waiting 1½ hours, which is plenty of time for the insulin to work, I was still at 182. I took yet more insulin. I’m also testing obsessively to prevent the blood sugar from climbing too high or allowing the ever-larger injections from dropping my levels too low. So the morning promised to be a challenge.  I ate little for breakfast, but still those few calories caused another big rebound.

At work, I was at 200. Yet another sizable shot of Novolog.

Heck, I’ve been doing more rebounding than all the basketball players during NCAA March Madness.

 

So that’s all to say that today will be an ordeal of my own creation. People, sometimes including my own family members, think that control of blood sugar should be more routine and more assured. I think I’m pretty good at keeping the sugar at a happy median most of the time and almost always. But, to change sports metaphors, avoiding hypoglycemia is like a football running back striving not to fumble. He can practice and be mentally and physically prepared to hold onto the ball with all his might, but then the unexpected hit occurs at the crazy angle that undoes his grip and sends the ball flying onto the field before he can realize it or correct the foible. Then he returns to the bench and beats himself up and tells himself that will never ever happen again. He takes corrective measures and practices situations in his mind and scolds himself until he regains confidence as he clutches the ball tightly and securely until … he’s hit hard and fumbles again.

So, yes, folks, I’m angry today. Sue is disappointed. And, back to the basketball metaphor, I’m rebounding like a Hall of Fame basketball center.

At this stage, I’m just glad I’m not dribbling.