Have you ever wondered what a day in the life of a brittle diabetic is like? I’m am sure you haven’t but I am going to tell you anyway. You see I woke up early Friday morning with such lofty plans. I had thoughts of getting an oil change in the Tracker, doing a little frivolous shopping at Meijer’s and maybe even hitting a few yard sales. I went online and chatted with my daughter Brooklyn for awhile and then headed off to Meijers. I wasn’t hungry so I didn’t bother with eating any breakfast. I mean, why should you eat when you aren’t hungry, right? And since I didn’t eat I didn’t take a morning dose of insulin. I take a shot of Humalog with every meal or snack. Humalog is a short acting insulin. At bedtime I take a shot of Lantus which is a long acting insulin. All together I take between 5 and 6 shots on a normal day. Except today.

On the way to Meijer I made a detour to Starbucks for a mocha frappachino (my summer time caffeine addiction). After Meijers I made a stop by the fish market for some awesome fresh tuna, then I made my way home for a bit to drop off the fish. That’s when things went downhill. The frapp I had consumed started to do a number on my blood sugar since I hadn’t taken any insulin. When I saw my blood sugar had risen to 397 and was still climbing I figured it was time to take a dose of fast acting insulin. Then I got busy bringing in my shopping and forgot to eat right away. By the time I realized my blood sugar was dropping too fast (since I had taken insulin without eating) it was too late and hell had already started. You see, when your blood sugar drops you get nauseous and shaky and while you need to eat you don’t want to eat. I grabbed a slice of cheese and a couple crackers and tried to force myself to eat them but I couldn’t get it down. My blood sugar had dropped down to 49 by that point. That is a dangerously low number. Seriously low in fact. And by that point I was too sick to eat but if I didn’t I would go into a diabetic coma. So I drank a coke and took a phenergan pill (keeps you from vomiting). I layed on the sofa with a cool washcloth on my forehead. I had the G-man call me every 10 minutes from work to make sure I was okay until my blood sugar went up to 99. Then I went to sleep on the sofa and slept the rest of the day from noon until 5:30 pm. An entire day lost! I hate that! Then on Friday evening I spent the whole evening sitting on the sofa watching my blood sugars jump from the 90’s to the 300’s to the 90’s and back to the 300’s. Just a little side effect of having an insulin reaction. It takes a day or so for things to return to some semblance of normal. And that my friends is a day in the life of a brittle diabetic. It sucks! Could someone please send me a pancreas so I don’t have to go through this anymore? I’ll gladly reimburse you.