Then he swam.
As he approached me from the hotel pool, I knew. The stumbles in his gait gave me the heads-up before the quickly whispered "I feel low" was uttered into my ear, while I stood in the hotel lobby.
I tried to get him to sit and check. He wouldn't. He immediately headed up a flight of stairs to our room. This act gave me some peace of mind, his ability to climb the stairs. As he entered our room, he crumpled. I checked. He was 24. Smarties were dispensed. Time was waited out. Another blood sugar of 45...juice...more time...another blood glucose of 36...another juice.... He had trouble lifting his arm to man the juice; his extremities were useless, weighted down from the lack of glucose.
This past weekend, Joe and I traveled to the Montreal area with his hockey team. Traveling in itself can present some challenges in managing t1d. Add in hockey games and a swimming pool ... and ... well ... jabbing my eyes with fiery hot pokers sounds like a more pleasant experience. Joe's blood sugars usually climb to the low 300s during hockey games, due to the adrenaline rush. I partially correct those highs and don't cover about 20-30 grams, or so, of post-game carbohydrates. The swimming and the scant IOB from the small correction did him in.
A few hours after the BG of 24 incident:
"Joe, did you feel low while you were swimming?"
"yes..slipped...on the pool deck...my legs weren't working right."
"Why didn't you stop? .... for sugar?"
"I thought I had more time." (before it got bad)
"Joe, you can't do that. You need to stop when you feel that way and eat sugar. It's dangerous. You could die from a low."
"I could?"
"Yes, potentially. You didn't know that?"
"No."
"You should treat the low right when you notice it."
 |
| A few hours after the 24/He played another hockey game. |
I thought he knew lows could be lethal. I don't know why I thought this. I never really told him that. I just assumed he knew. Thinking back over the years, I realize I've avoided telling him that little tid bit. There was no reason to when he was 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, or maybe even 10 years old. Now there is. He is a 12 year old boy developing quite typically. He wants his independence. I want him to have it. It all scares me sometimes..though.
A small mention of death during our day-in-the-life.
2 comments:
Sent this to two local d-mom friends. One is the mom of an ice hockey player - a cute young girl.
I cannot imagine what it's like to have to look at your own child and say, "You could die."
as a T1D person myself I can relate to Joe.
Most of the time it's not like this but sometimes it is. You feel like you can squeeze just that last thing in like putting away the laundry or sweeping the floor before you sit down to deal with the low. I don't know why we do that sometimes.
the super lows and all the juice/smarties etc was a day in my life too.
It's so hard to ALLOW diabetes to just be so rude and interrupt our everyday lives at the drop of a hat that sometimes we try to boss IT around. It never works though. You can't fight the lack of glucose with meditation. :P
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