Bleh.
I did not have a very good week. I guess I’ll start at the beginning–last Monday afternoon.
I had to go to New Mexico for work. The plan was to fly out of the College Station airport to DFW, then make a connecting flight to El Paso, and drive to Las Cruces from there.
The airport in College Station is not much of one. To my knowledge, it only flies to Dallas and Houston. With the airline business and all things in general being in the crapper, flights from College Station are often canceled or delayed. Ours was delayed. Delayed enough that we just missed our connecting flight from DFW to El Paso by only a few minutes. Fantastic.
We traveled in a group of six. Four of us booked tickets earlier than the other two, because it wasn’t decided that the other two would be going on this trip until later. I was in the latter group of two. So, when we went up to the counter to receive new boarding passes for a later flight to El Paso, the first group of four got confirmed first class tickets on the next flight out to El Paso at 4pm, while the remaining two of us only got standby on the 4pm flight, and confirmed seats (not first class!) on the flight out at 5:40pm.
When boarding time arrives for the 4pm flight, we soon learn that there is absolutely no chance standby will get a seat. So our four co-workers board and fly in luxury to El Paso, while one of my bosses (Dr. J) and I sit around and wait another two hours.
At some point during our wait, Dr. J checks the screen to see if our flight is still on time. Guess what? It’s been delayed until 6pm and they’ve changed gates on us! Joy! So we truck it 15 gates down and sit and wait some more. As 6pm rolls around, someone comes on the speaker and tells us that boarding will be delayed further due to some sort of “maintenance issue” on the plane. Awesome!
Eventually we get on the plane. It was probably 6:30 or 7. But wait! The fun isn’t over yet! There was another 20 minute or so delay on the runway. How does this happen? Apparently some planes got mixed up. Or something. Ridiculous.
Whatever. We eventually get there.
Unfortunately for me, this is only the beginning of fun.
That night, I managed to have an episode with my diabetes. I talk about it on here often enough, but if you don’t already know, I’m type 1 diabetic, known a long time ago as juvenile diabetes, or insulin dependent diabetes. I was diagnosed late in life for a type 1, at age 18. I take insulin shots everyday, and if I didn’t, I wouldn’t make it very long. Recently, I started taking a different kind of insulin. My doctor’s solution after my last 3 month blood sugar average was higher than he liked. I’ve been taking this new insulin regime without major incident for a few weeks.
Back to Monday night. I was low before I went to bed. My glucometer read 54. Ugh. So I ate a snack and got it to over 100 before falling asleep (for reference, normal people levels are around 80 to 120 mg/dL). Of course, this just wasn’t good enough. I kind of remember waking up in a cold sweat in the middle of the night. A brief flash, of sorts. But the next thing I know, it’s about 6am, and my pillow and sheets are covered in blood. And my tongue fucking hurts.
Apparently, I seizured from low blood sugar during the night. This has happened to me before, perhaps three other times in my life. But this is the first time it’s happened when I was alone. All the other times Andy witnessed it, and was able to get my blood sugar back up for me. My previous seizures always left my legs sore as hell. Sore like after you get a charlie horse. This time though, my legs weren’t sore, but my back was. But shortly after I woke up, the back pain was pale in comparison to the pain in my mouth from damn near biting my tongue off. It was not a pretty sight. I’m sure the hotel maids were thrilled to clean up the mess I made of the bed too. Haha.
But, luckily, I did manage to wake up, get dressed, and get on with my day. I went to the conference, and made it through the morning and half of the afternoon before my back just couldn’t take it anymore. I was struggling sitting through the afternoon presentations big time. So during the afternoon break, I thought it might help my back if I went to the other room and just lay down on the floor for a few minutes.
Bad idea. Horrible. What was I thinking? Sure, it felt better when I was lying down. But fuck me if I could get back up. I couldn’t even sit up or turn my body without immense pain. But I had to do it. I couldn’t just lay on the floor like that. So I got up without screaming, and went back out to sit down. A woman at the conference saw me, and apparently I wasn’t looking so hot, so she got some of my co-workers and they took me back to my hotel room.
I immediately changed and got into bed, and remained there for the next couple hours and slept. When I awoke, I immediately realized I had a problem. I couldn’t move without wanting to die. Luckily, I kept my cell phone close, so I could reach it when my co-workers called. They first tried the hotel phone, which was out of reach, I figured out. I was in a sad, sad state.
They had to call the paramedics. How humiliating. But I agreed to it, because what else could I do? I was damn stuck. There was no way I was getting up on my feet.
The paramedics arrive. They hear about my diabetic issue that caused the whole thing. Apparently diabetes is an automatic special case freak out for everyone. Ha. Anyway, they want to make sure my blood sugar level is okay. Of course, it’s not. It started out okay. Then dropped to 71. Then 44. Then the paramedics made me eat this disgusting sugar in a tube. And many minutes later I was in the hospital hoping to god someone just hurry the fuck up and give me pain meds for my back.
It was a pretty slow process, but eventually I came out of it with three prescriptions for pain meds/muscle relaxers. Yippee.
I slept through the next day. I missed my presentation, which was the whole reason for me going to this conference in the first place, but oh well. My blood sugar levels have been insane ever since. Just low low low. I can’t make any sense of it. It’s like the insulin turned into super insulin, or my pancreas decided to all of a sudden work after 9 years of spurting out nothing.
Throughout the rest of the trip, I was taking much less insulin than normal. I even skipped some shots altogether, and I was still winding up low. Today has been closer to normal, I think. Well, not normal normal. But I skipped my shot with dinner last night, was 170 before bed, so I didn’t want to take anything out of immense fear of going low, then I woke up at 292. Which is what should happen. So while 292 in itself is bad, it’s more normal for my circumstances. And it’s been running higher all day, as I’m just not sure what to do with myself anymore. If some sense of sanity doesn’t return, I’ll try and get in with my doctor this week.
My back is mostly better. I mean, it’s still sore and stiff a little bit, but not when I’m on my medication. My tongue is mostly healed. Finally. Despite this, I’m still not feeling very well. I had a sore throat yesterday, and a little bit today. Mostly, I think I’m just razzled. The medication I’m taking for my back makes me sleepy. I always feel very weird after I have a low blood sugar seizure. A feeling of death, I guess you could say. I feel like I should be dead. Or could have died then, and it leaves me strange and jittery and not very happy. Hopefully I will get over it soon.
Next week should be a normal week back in the office. I’m not looking forward to catching up on work. Here’s to hoping I can concentrate on it. Hope you all had a better week than I.
=o Jaclyn that sounds terrible!!
I would totally freak out, you deal with your diabetes so well <3
(but I find it funny that you were embarassed by the paramedics xD)
It also sucks about missing your presentation =[
EEE I hope your back feels better =] and your jittery feeling.
Now, go rest!!
Feel Better <33,
Torri
that tottally stinks! you deffinatly didn’t have a good week. hope you feel better soon!
I my god you poor unfortunate soul. I really hope you feel better and if it brings any consolance i once fainted in the shower.
Jaclyn! I’m so worried about you, I really am.
He needs to know what the insulin is doing and they need to get you straightened out, decrease the dosing, w/e. I’ll shut up or I’ll get too medical.. >)
I would have totally freaked out if one of my patients would have went into a diabetic seizure.. we’ve only had that happen once in the two years I have been working here. I’m SO sorry that happened while you were alone, and I hope your tongue gets better. I guess all the questions I have are all technical, like what type of insulin are you on and stuff like that (cuase I have this irrepressible urge to fix the situation) but anyway, I hope you are going back to your diabetic doc soooooon!
Like today,
Thanks, y’all. My tongue is much better; back still gets stiff after I sit a while. And my blood sugar is still a little bit loony toons.
I’m currently trying out Novolog 70/30. Previously, I was on Levemir once a day and Novolog during meals. Levemir I like a LOT because it didn’t peak like old timey NPH (what I was on first after diagnosed) used to or Lantus (which I was on prior to Levemir). But, Levemir wasn’t lasting the full 24 hours on me, so I either had to add an additional shot or try out the Novolog 70/30, which would decrease the number of shots I take a day since it mixes fast-acting with long-acting.
And well, clearly the 70/30 got my numbers down! I just think it’s peaking too much in the middle of the night. Which is the problem I’ve had with everything but Levemir. LOL. XD So, if I don’t get my dosage of 70/30 under control soon, I’ll probably go back to Levemir and just add the extra shot. I dunno, my doc might have other ideas. I see him in a few weeks.
I have decreased my 70/30 dosage a lot since my “episode”, and I won’t go to bed without my BG higher than 120 until I see him (though I was 120 last night, and wound up at 40 at 6am *sigh*). In the meantime I’m obsessively tracking what my levels are through the day and what I eat and such, so that perhaps he’ll be able to help me better when I go see him next. That’s a problem I had before….got a tad lazy (okay a lot lazy) about keeping decent records since I was so comfortable with my old routine, so when he wanted to switch me off Levemir, he didn’t have much to go on from me.
It almost seems like before I was under-dosing the long-acting (big time, apparently…I’m taking so much less insulin overall now), and now with the 70/30, it’s giving me too much long-acting. >__< Heh, that was long. I like you being in the medical field, Ash. Gives me someone to vent this to who has a clue what I’m talking about.
My poor dollie! I will keep you in my prayers until this dark cloud of madness passes. I’m just sooo glad that you are safe and that you made it back home okay! Your courage is immaculate, I watch my grandeur poke her tummy all the time with insulin. It makes me weezy! X/ My husband is the account manager of the southern hospitals here in Tx. You know, Houston, Clearlake, Galveston, etc… Anyhow, you be careful- those damn things can sometimes slip into commas. But I’m I sure you already know and you are a big girl. So take care hun, I’ll be checking on you M K? 8D
That sucks man!
Are you still working on I Woke Up LA?
Sounds to me like you need to be doing the new correctional dosing scale we have here at the hospital. It takes into account your weight in kilos and your CBG to dose your supplemental insulin so that you don’t get too low. That might be a pain in the ass tho. I have a nifty link that does it for me – but the long way around is to divide wt in lbs by 2.2, then that gives wt in kilos. 3200/(wt in kilos) = ISF – insulin sensitivity factor. Then you take your CBG (blood sugar) – 100 and then divide that by your ISF. Gives you a more accurate dose. I put it out there so you could try it out. I’m kinda partial to lantus, but some of the more brittle diabetics I’ve had over time have been known to be sensitive to dropping at night with it – but tend to only take a small dose if their CBG wasn’t >150 at bedtime. We don’t give HS insulin at night unless the CBG is >150 and most of our pt’s are on regular insulin. You poor type 1 diabetics who have had it forever are brittle as crap, and very unpredictable. Let me know when you get straightened out! You have my email, feel free to use it if u want to vent medical stuff!
Interesting!
I thought Lantus was heaven when I first got on it, because I was coming from NPH for my long-acting. But the night-lows were still there, and once I got on Levemir, they went away near completely. Most type 2s I know that are on insulin take Lantus though. And most type 1s I hear about complain about Lantus. LOL.
That’s really interesting to me that you guys still use Regular insulin! I used that for fast-acting maybe a couple months after I was first diagnosed, then they switched me to Humalog (and later then to Novolog — and for a short while, I tried Apidra, but it didn’t come in pens, so I went back to Novolog after discovering the joy of FlexPens). I honestly didn’t think they used Regular insulin much anymore, since it’s so slow compared to the other fast-actings.
Anyway, you’ll find it interesting to know, I’ve returned to normal. Back on the dosage my doctor originally prescribed, and not having any more lows (so far). It’s strange because I returned to normal as my period finished. I’ve noticed my period affecting my BG before, but never anything like this. Weird weird weird.
Well I’m just glad you got it sorted out. /hugs