A Low Blow.

That crisp feeling of morning freshness was slowly beginning to fade. My state of calm was beginning to substitute itself with discomfort. i could feel this rapid sensation slowly washing over my entire body.

I glanced at my pump, which told me that I had point six of a unit of insulin on board. I reached into my grey pencil case, and popped two pink raspberry glucose tablets into my mouth. I thought about the temporary basal rate that I’d had running up until an hour ago to correct an early morning blood sugar of 15mmol, and begrudgingly shoved a third tab into my mouth. 

My legs were feeling unusually stuffy, even if they were concealed under trackpants on a warm November day. Beads of sweat were building underneath my arms, and rapidly extending across my upper body. Within minutes I could feel my shirt sticking to my skin, and my pants against my thighs.

A wave of exhaustion suddenly washed over me. My whole body felt…heavy. Every movement, every step I took was an effort. I was struggling to focus on titles in the box of games I was holding, frantically wanting to check them off on the invoice in front of me. The invoice that would be my ticket out of the room.

How long had it been? Five, possibly ten minutes? Nah, couldn’t be any more than five.

I walked back over to my pencil case, and popped another two glucose tabs into my mouth, desperate for this wave of discomfort to pass. I grabbed the invoice and walked off to the office, ignoring a shrill call for my name that was heading in the opposite direction of me.

I collapsed into the chair, and leant forward onto the desk.

I was limp. I didn’t want to work my way through this, like I so often do. I just wanted to sit there, and wait for the exhaustion and the sweats to pass.

The shrill voice finally found me, and the words I knew I’d have to say escaped my mouth before she even had a chance to ask me for help.

“I just need a minute.”

“I’ll be back out there soon.”

I explained that my blood sugar was low, and that I just wanted to sit there and wait for it to pass. I was offered tic tacs and an orange, which I politely refused, insisting that I had already treated and just needed to wait it out. Said person politely went and grabbed me a glass of water, which was exactly what I needed in that moment.

Five minutes passed.

I got out of my chair and walked down to the kitchen to refill my glass of water. I walked into the mens, washed my hands and tamed my sweat with some anti-perspirant.

I went back to work, wondering if this new acquaintance to my diabetes would feel the need to tread on eggshells around me.

I hope not.

One Comment

  1. davidburren

    You’d been running a high TBR?
    I think you’ll find your pump wasn’t taking that into account when calculating your IOB! You could have had a lot more than 0.6U in your system.

    Trap for young players, and one of the advantages of those closed-loop systems that DO count the basal insulin in the IOB calculations.

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