I was woken up this morning by my
partners alarm beeping away at 7am.
“Do we have to go to work?” I
asked as I tried to remember which day it was. I was sure it was Sunday…
“Not today, I set it by
accident.” He replied.
Feeling pleased I rolled over and
went back to sleep. I woke up again at 9am full of energy and enthusiasm…
“I’m ready to start my day!” I said,
waiting for a response. When I realised I wasn’t going to get one I gathered my
essentials - laptop, ipad, phone and blood glucose machine, then I headed to the
front room.
My blood sugar reading was 13.7mmol/l so I took 1.6 units of insulin as a correction. I didn’t feel hungry enough to
eat anything so I made a cup of tea instead and settled down to start on an
essay. Three hours later I was ready to eat. I grabbed some noodles and counted
the carbs, there were 40 grams per portion which meant I needed 5.4 units of
insulin as my blood sugar had come down to 8.5mmol/l. I used the multiwave
function on my insulin pump which meant that the insulin could be delivered
over a certain period of time. I choose 4 hours and gave an immediate dose of 1
unit – I’ve learnt over time that if I take more than 2 units of insulin when my blood sugar is between 4-9mmol/L I end up having a hypo, so I tend to use the
multiwave function for times like this.
45 minutes later we were heading
out for a walk in sunny Southsea, so I checked my blood sugar again. It was 5.7mmol/l which 9 times out of 10 means that I'm heading towards a hypo. It’s very rare
for me that my blood sugars will stay at a ‘good’ range, so I ate a few jelly
babies as we left the house.
Around 30 minutes later I felt my
hypo symptoms coming on. A sudden tingling sensation washed through me from
head to toe and walking in a straight line became quite difficult.
“I’m having a hypo” I said as I
reached into my bag for my jelly babies. As they don’t seem to be working very
well as a hypo treatment at the moment we went to a shop to buy a drink to
treat the hypo instead. Only a few minutes after my symptoms had started everything
changed very suddenly.
“I can’t see properly” I said. My
other half held my hand tightly.
“Shall we go back to the car?” He
asked. I nodded… at that stage no words would come out of my mouth.
The car was only 5 minutes away
but the walk back seemed to take hours. My vision had changed again and objects
around me started to go past in a flash. The only way I can describe it is like
a strobe lighting effect. Nothing was staying still but flashing in front of my
eyes. People walking past seemed to be coming out of nowhere, even shop doors
seemed to springing up from the ground. This has happened to me a few times
before but this time everything seemed to be sped up, apart from me. I was
aware that I was walking quite slowly and gripping onto my partner’s hand. I
remember feeling scared that something might jump out at me, and thinking that people were watching me (which they probably were). I desperately
wanted to be in a safe place.
The next thing I knew I was
finding it hard to catch my breath, and every object that seemed to be jumping
out caused me to take in a sharp breath. I suddenly became so frightened I started
to cry. My poor partner must have been getting the strangest looks as he walked
through the street with me, holding onto what must have looked like a drunk
girl in tears… at 1pm.
I then found myself stood by my
car as he put his hand into my bag to find my car keys. I looked at him and my
brain didn’t quite catch up. Why was this person saying he’ll drive me home? I
stood at the driver’s side of the car for a few seconds, again my brain hadn’t caught up, and then walked around to the passenger’s side to get in.
I don’t remember much after that
but I woke up in bed wearing pyjamas with a bar of chocolate on the pillow next
to me.
Thinking back on it now I feel so
silly for crying, but at the time the whole situation was incredibly frightening. I
hated feeling so out of control, even if it was only for a few minutes, and I’m
just glad that the majority of my hypos are much easier to deal with.
