Now What??

Today is kind of a continuation of yesterday's blog. Do I really need the link?? Nope, but what the hell, why not? I was hoping to get some type of response from my questions yesterday, but I know sometimes things may be delayed. If I see something, I will make sure to share them all.
I use the title now what? for a reason. While technically I have other people that live with me. I live by myself. It is me verses any and all demons I may face at night. It could be the imagined weird demons that I sometimes dream about. It could be the lifelike nightmares of OMG, I just got robbed and now I am trying to fix a dated Ice Cream dispensing machine at a bar (That dream is courtesy of my post mass nap at 7:30 this morning, so bizarre). To the worst demon of all, the 2:00 low. I hate the 2:00 low, I mean sometimes I will just wake up and realize, aaw sprinkles I'm low. Those I can handle, that is what the handy bottle of Dex4 glucose tabs is there for right?? I pop a few and pass out in exhaustion. I realize this is not the best way to handle things, but I don't sleep well as it is, so the near catatonia of a low makes falling asleep so much easier. That I can handle.
It is the other demon, I am not a big fan of, it seems to happen only when I have some strange ass combination of pizza, dairy, or something. I call it the combo bolus fail or the near death temp basal. Neither of these demons are fun. Usually for me, I wake up in a pool of sweat, soaked through sheets, pillows, penguin footy pajamas (i wish I had those), in an obvious daze. This is coupled by the realization that I am low. Next the panic of either a. my arms are asleep (WHERE THE FRUCTOSE DID MY ARMS GO??) panic or the b. I moved my arm to the right and it just poked me in the eye, WTF?!?! Oh I hate letter b. thank goodness he only comes and visits very, very, infrequently. He knows I don't like him.
In either case though, you are stuck lying there without the ability to really do anything. I have to be patient and hope that I will eventually get enough fine motor control to get to the glucose just out of arms length away. After what seems like forever, I am able to master enough fine motor control to get my glucose tabs, I do my best to jam a few in my mouth, my nose, ear, all over the bed. You know, whatever my hand feels like doing. But now what?

See, I eventually got to my title. I sometimes ramble, that is another story.

So now I lie in bed, with thoughts of oh crap in my head. 

My sugar is low and I am moving oh so slow. 

I ate my tabs even though some are sprinkled about my abs. (or where my abs once were)

I lie and wait, almost as if I am on a date.

I close my eyes almost as if its a dare and I turn my thoughts to prayer.

It clears my mind and helps put the past behind.

But most of all, I have found that one to call.

That's right, in my moments of panic, lack of coherency, rushed heart rate as I lie in bed waiting for my sugar to rise enough for me to get out of my soaked clothes, drink some water to get the weird taste from my mouth. Contemplate an early morning shower to warm up and address the cramps in my legs I will feel for the next two days. I pray. Nothing spectacular. Usually a few Hail Mary's but also just thanks that I woke up in my bed on my own accord eventually not in the hospital or worse. That's what I do. I turn to the one who made me, who gave me life. Who has given me the strength to do this, the friends to get me to where I am now. 

Some people may find this bizarre, I have met those people out there who ask me, if I am angry, bitter, or upset that I was "made" a diabetic. Do I ever curse him? Honestly, not so much. I do have my days of "why me??" But they are not so frequent. How can I hate the one who has given me so much. Loving parents, friends, family. A support structure out there of nuts or noots in the DOC to help me if needed. 

Things could be so much worse. I hate the lows that happen. I wish I could control them better, but well I am working on it. The now what for me in my time of need is prayer. The now what in my life at many points is to turn to prayer. It is grounding, calming, it is awesome. You may not agree with me, you may think it weird, but that is fine too. Just as we all have opinions on how to take care of ourselves despite what our doctors tell us or how we bolus a piece of yummy pizza. We are all different, we are all unique, we all do what we can. Our differences are what make the DOC so much fun. We may not share all the same beliefs, but we do have one thing in common. 

Our love of cupcakes and possibly bacon (the vegetarian in me wants to say this is a bad idea, but the repressed carnivore is telling me to stuff an olive up my nose and go back to meat.) On that note, my craving for cupcakes has just attacked so I am going to put something not even remotely cupcake like in my mouth to shut it up.

How do you deal??

A very muzzy (I was going with vague, but I checked my Thesaurus and was all over the word muzzy) title I know, but it's because sometimes that is how things feel to me. This thought was generated Tuesday night as I was low, but it goes back to last week as well. So I guess I should start at the beginning and not the end or middle or where ever the heck we are starting.

Once upon a time, it was a Wednesday night. Brian in his normal routine or well now his normal routine sat down at his comfy desk and participated (sarcastically made fun of people and talked slightly piratey) in the #DSMA that happens every Wednesday on Twitter. I was minding my own business as is always the case, when Captain Low Ass appeared, not sure where that came from but I am going with it. It was probably about 10:02, when he finally attacked. Sadly, oddly, my CGM slowly trickled down not the double dip or what so I never was alarmed about this occurrence. I was picking on Sara about something when she tweeted back, something along the lines of, "I'm still waiting on your e-mail." Nothing bad, wrong, or hurtful about it.

For some reason though, the attack of Captain Low Ass and the comment just did it. I had not reply, retort, comment for her. My brain had momentarily died. It was at that point that I realized that this was happening in the first place. So I tested since Beepy was delayed and low and behold I was 46. Get it low... Sorry. So I did what I normally like to do, raid the fridge. I went down stairs and not trusting my self with a glass started to imbibe some OJ. Well imbibe is not the right word. I drank some of it, my shirt and the floor got the rest of it. Problem solved. At the same time, I had one of my genius lows. This time I even noted, I should jot down what I was thinking. So I run back upstairs and start trying to get my thoughts out onto a post it note with a pencil. I didn't have much success as pictured below.

You don't actually need to see what I wrote. It was creative cursing at its best. But also a blog post idea, no hints.

I got so pissed, angry, and actually teared up. Last Wednesday Diabetes made me cry. Probably for like the second time in my life. I can handle it. I can deal with it most of the time. But the low, the brain dead, the inability to have a thought, everything just made me cry. It was like a 10 second affair. Yet, it still pissed me off to the nth degree. I wrote a note to my diabetes in word after about 10 minutes. It was about a paragraph long. I did not save it. I just vented and yelled at it. I let it know I was angry. And I moved on, I think, but I am still resentful of Wednesday of last week.

Fast forward to last night. I was in bed, minding my own business watching Voyager on my iPad, (I so love Netflix). I finished, I curled up to sleep at around 11:55. I woke up at 12:08 feeling low. Brain numb, not body numb low. Reached over popped some tabs. And fell back into a slumber. I know not the best thing, but I was so out of it. I am glad I was alert enough to treat. This is where everything leads to. The muzzy title and all. How do you deal??

How do you deal with the night time lows or the lows in general? Do you have a plan? I am jealous of all my friends out there who have their other or better half. Their type awesome who helps them out. But there are some who are just type 1's on their own. I have no back up plan. I have nothing. My friend Jeanette called me a few weeks ago and told me about a low she had (she lives like 20 minutes away). Her parents were out of town and it was just her. As she was telling me this, she spoke of calling her neighbor at like 12:00 in the morning and them coming over and getting her drink and just making sure she was okay. I don't have that. I realized, I don't have a back up plan. It's just me verse the low and I always hope I can win. So far so good. But what do you do? I don't have a Becca, I don't have a reliable service penguin to warn me. I have me and my dashing sense of humor.

What is your emergency plan? Can I steal it? Let me know, so I can truly look at it and pass it on to those who read me.

Wordless Wednesday - I Need to Travel More

So the only time I clean out my test kit is when I am going somewhere and I don't want to throw test strips everywhere. Apparently I need to venture out more often.

Guess how many?!?!

I know in the picture above it looks like there are some in there, but you truly can't gather the enormity of the pile. So I broke it into piles of 50.

145 Strips and I know some are lost or tossed

Oh and my penguin flashlight says "Hi." It is rechargeable by pumping the flipper. It is AWESOME!!!

When Zombies attack!!!

Since I have no cute dogs to film, no cute cats to film, no kids to film (cute I should add). I had some free time to think or catch up.
I was playing catch up with some of the blogs that I stalk yesterday(well today, but I am writing this for tomorrow, so Yesterday). Mike over at the The Diabetic's Corner Booth, posted on his Friday Blog the various 5 words our meters could say to us. This started as a tweet between Jess and George! There are alot of links here, I apologize. But Mike's comment at the hand of Diabetes and Zombies go hand and hand is what truly got my brain going on this one.
Diabetic Zombies are out there. This is also know as fuzzy or low brain. You know that feeling when you are kinda with it, but so completely not with it. People talk to you, you stare at them, thinking I want brains or where is my brain. You do something, and later when people tell you about it, you don't remember it. There are pictures of stuff that when you see them you go, oh crap why don't I remember that. Oh yeah, I was LOW! If I can find it later, I have a perfect example of low brain.

Normal or Zombie?? I was on the Sea of Galilee and I don't remember this picture at all or the boat ride.

Diabetic zombies are crazy at times. Stuff happens and you can't control or stop them. They have super human strength. They have no qualms about what they do now. Regrets later, but nothing at the time. The worst thing is, THEY ARE AMONG US! You don't know when they will attack. The only way to stave them off is to throw glucose tabs down their throats, along with juice, soda, or anything else that is sweet and yummy.

Warning they are among us, you never know when they will attack. They could be the people standing right next to you.

Or pretty much everyone in this picture but Becca!

Look out, be careful, always have your sugar ready!!! RAAAAR!!!!! (Coulda used that last night, during DSMA I started to get the Zombie attack. I barely managed to make it through DSMA before I ran off to get OJ. That is another story. The story of WHEN OJ ATTACKS!!!!!)