The Diabetes Translation of “Good Thanks.”
“Hi, how are you today?” Is what I’ll be asked the minute I walk into work this morning.
And “Haha, no too bad thanks.” Is my boring, stock standard reply that I seem to give every other day.
However, the diabetes translation of these words actually goes something like this:
Well, I wanted to have an early night yesterday. My blood sugar level was a perfect 5.3 at 9.42pm. I so badly wanted to go to bed and not think about numbers for 8 whole hours. But I couldn’t. That’s just one of the realities of having diabetes. I can do so, sometimes. But at the moment, I just can’t. I have absolutely no confidence in my night time glucose levels at the moment, which means that I can’t treat myself to a whole uninterrupted night’s sleep. I had to set my alarm last night, so that I could test my blood sugar levels during the night just to make sure.
I was startled awake at 12.30am by my favourite blaring noise that came from the alarm clock on my iPhone. My blood sugar level was another perfect 4.7, and I was able to quickly go back to sleep.
I woke up again at 2.11am, feeling a little shaky. I wanted so badly to ignore it, and drift back off to sleep. I could not be bothered opening my eyes and turning on the bright light of my bedside lamp in order to test. But I had to. I activated one of my diabetes superpowers and forced myself awake. Another perfect 4.5. I was convinced I was hypo, and had to test again just to be sure. Nope, it was 4.7. And with that, I was able to drift back off to sleep again.
I woke up next at 3.54am, feeling shaky once again. This time I was 3.1. I had to work out how many marshmallows I would treat my hypo with, and carefully measure them out onto the palm of my hand. If I don’t do this, my hypo-hangry brain will completely forget how many I’ve eaten once I start.
For the fourth time that night, I had to drift back off to sleep. And for the fourth time that night I was woken up, this time by my 5.50am morning alarm.
So, all in all, I had a crap night.
That’s what “not too bad thanks” really means, if I were to answer your question truthfully today.