fighting to live – literally…

 

Last night is a night I won’t forget for a while..

A very typical Sunday night for us. A busy weekend of basketball tournaments followed by 2.5 hrs of skills clinic in the evening.

It was a GREAT weekend of basketball – we were all pretty happy and maybe a little bit too cocky – telling D to “take that!

WOOHOO – Way to go Teams!

 

 

Yeah – guess D didn’t like that very much… 😔

6 games of basketball in 2 days is a LOT of hard work and exercise for anyone – let alone trying to manage Type 1 Diabetes and the effect it has on Eden’s body.

 

But we do it – and we do it often

Because she LOVES basketball and T1D shouldn’t stop her from doing ANYTHING…

 

4 of the games were on Saturday – 3 were back to back – with little to zero break in between games – I brought extra sugar thinking her blood sugar would run low – but of course adrenaline took care of that and she ran high all afternoon..

Totally expecting a crash on Saturday night – I changed basal rates so she would get less insulin before going to bed and she ate a late night snack with ZERO insulin to help keep her blood sugar up and stable..

Well, the crash never happened on Saturday night as expected??? 

In fact, her blood sugar remained high and never dropped below 200 – waking up high on Sunday too..

I was too over cautious every time I checked on her overnight to give her extra insulin because I was SURE the crash was coming..

but it didn’t….

Until LAST night…

Her Dex transmitter came out of her arm right before we were leaving the house for her evening basketball clinic. I INSISTED that we re-insert before we left because it takes 2 full hours to “warm up” and calibrate – so we are completely blind to what her blood sugars are doing for 2 hours (except by doing a finger prick)

testing during clinic and she was great – perfectly in range..

After practice – as usual – her blood sugar was high due to adrenaline

Eden was going to eat something when she got home – so gave herself insulin and was going to come home, eat and not dose for the food she ate.

 

great plan – but it didn’t really work out..

 

 

You can see where she tested and calibrated (2 red dots) in the car on the way home from basketball clinic..

She came down slowly and then I could tell she was starting to tank at 9.15pm right before she went to bed..

She had a juice – I turned down the basal rates to limit how much insulin she would get for the next 2 hours and waited..

That wait literally turned into all night long as her blood sugar refused to rise

 

Every time I tried to wake her to eat or drink something she became more and more combative. 😢

 

She was flailing arms, screaming at me and telling me to go away, clenching her mouth shut and down right REFUSING to eat or drink.. She was not herself – she was not fully awake, had her eyes closed the entire time and has never behaved this way and to this extent before

It went on for hours…… and hours and hours…

She would take a little juice here and little glucose gel there but it was NOT easy – she wanted NOTHING to do with it..

Her blood sugar would start to rise and then slam right back down again..

 

 

I was absolutely beside myself.. scared, mad, exhausted and about ready to scream for D-dad to forcibly hold her down so we could get sugar into her mouth..

I had the Glucagon film reel playing in my head – ready to use it – thinking there might be no other option

At about 1.30am it looked like I could finally go to bed and close my eyes – I set my alarm for 2 hours later and woke up to her being in the RED zone AGAIN…

 

OMG… 

We have had MANY very stubborn low blood sugars lately and I have NO IDEA why… nothing has changed and I have lowered her overnight insulin rates.

This is part of Type 1 Diabetes that people DO NOT SEE… DO NOT UNDERSTAND..

It is so scary and dangerous.. I was literally fighting with Eden to keep her alive last night..

She slept though every single beeping alarm of her Dexcom to warn her – if she had started to crash after I had gone to sleep – I wouldn’t have checked on her for 2 hours… that could have been 2 hours TOO LATE…

Eden woke up tired, with her blood sugar in range and with absolutely NO RECOLLECTION of what had transpired and went to school just like it was any other day.. looking and acting perfectly healthy and normal

The Type 1 Diabetic life is beyond normal – but it is OUR normal