Thank God This Happened Before I Left

Last night I experienced very low blood sugar. By the time I was aware of what was transpiring, I was way too far gone. I stumbled about the apartment, managing to get to the refrigerator for some juice. I drank some grapefruit juice out of the carton, but perhaps this wasn't sweet enough. I began to panic, evidently screaming for help, because Jason, my next-door neighbor in the front half of the house, came to my door. I must have said something frenetic and incoherent, so he called the paramedics.

The fact that I can scream so loud that neighbors hear me is something that surprises me, since I have never screamed in my normal state of existence. It's interesting to note these things about oneself--that there are regions within us that we can access when we need to. Certainly a life-threatening situation like low blood sugar level is one of those times that the body and the mind bring out all that lies hidden during our everyday life in a final effort to avoid death. Last night was just such a time.

By the time the paramedics arrived, I was flailing about on the floor next to Rasputin's kennel. (I had put him inside it and locked the door as I always do. He loves the security and privacy of this small space. He loves being incarcerated when he beds down for the night!) I was screaming, too, and Rasputin was probably getting scared. He barked vociferously at the paramedics, but couldn't reach them to bite.

About the time the paramedics arrived, Aaron arrived home from his restaurant job. The paramedics measured my blood sugar at 40, and it had no doubt been much lower, since I had already had the juice. They stuck me twice in my skinny, little left wrist in an attempt to find a good vein. I felt this pain, though usually when I am given an emergency IV of glucose I am so out of it that I don't feel anything. The glucose began to revive me, and I was able to tell them my name, address, age, and birth date--information that is beyond my reach when my blood sugar is dangerously low.

I signed a release indicating that I did not want to go to the hospital. I felt dizzy, exhausted, beat up, but I was coherent. My body and clothes were soaked in adrenaline sweat, the sweat of death, of fight or flight, the body's final effort to kick-start action. I took a shower to rinse this smell of death from me, but it remained, and I smelled it on my fresh clothes in the morning.

Yesterday I only tested my blood sugar five times. I will have to make a concerted effort to check it much more often when I am in New York. It's one thing being home, where I have concerned neighbors and a wonderful son. It's another thing being in a big city where no one knows me from Adam.