Lo

Lo on a blood sugar meter means under 20. It also means impending seizure, coma or death if you do not ingest sugar NOW. To see LO actually pop up on your meter screen nearly slams you to the floor with a sense of shock and panic. Today that is just what happened. Maddison hit LO when everything should have been just fine.

Two words that make me cringe. Birthday party. The combination of excitement, activities like swimming and food.....and cake with mile high frosting is a hard balance to try and maintain good numbers. No big deal lately, we have been doing great. Bring on the pre-bolus to get that insulin working before the frosting hits! It has always worked before! So the mom running the party (just one house down) knows to give me a 20 minute heads up before cake time. Maddison's blood sugar is 109. Yeah! I give insulin for the cake as they are preparing to gather the kids. I run home to change out my laundry, planning to come back and check out the cake she is served. Maddison is always the only kid at the party that has to have mom or dad stay. So, I was really trying to give the freedom that every parent wants there child to have. One house down, no problem right?

When I came back after about 15min the kids were gathered around opening presents. No cake, presents first I guess. No big deal, I give her some chocolate milk (15c) and figure as long as they hurry up Maddison will be fine. I give her a few animal crackers just in case. As soon as she finished gulping down her milk she hopped up pale as a ghost. She started to say "I feel urgently urgently urgently (she wouldn't stop saying urgently) urgently low" So I picked her up and sat her on the counter knowing this was REALLY bad. I crammed some soda in her, switched to glucose tablets so she could swish the sugar around in her mouth to absorb it faster. Quick check....LO!!! Panic! She looked horrible and I could see her shaking which I thought was an impending seizure. Back to the soda......just pour it in! She was banging her fist on her head saying "I'm making sure this isn't a dream." (When you are seriously low you feel "floaty" and out of your own body) Quick check to make sure her sugar is coming up, 48. Two more glucose tablets, more soda....where is the fucking liver rebound when you need it? I wanted to rip open the cake package and cram frosting in her mouth. But instead I sat there quietly panicked while the party continued. No one had any idea that my child almost passed out into a seizure right there in front of everyone at the party. I was weak in the knees and so mad at myself for trusting my child's life to anyone. I should know by now that no one "gets it" and no one really cares. Cake in 20 minutes to us, means the cake had better be in 20 minutes. I thank god that I came back as soon as I did. I trusted the cake to be served, it wasn't and Maddison could have died. Right there, one house down without me, because of me.

At first I was really angry that the damn cake was put off. I was furious with the mom for changing the plan. But, She didn't know the seriousness of giving insulin without food. I can't expect people to understand that, and I can't expect them to care about the one kid at the party that needs special accomidations. Birthday parties are chaotic. The plans change. You just go with the flow. I thought about telling her today the seriousness of what happened yesterday but I realize that doing so will only make her feel terrible. I also realize that I was the idiot that caused this to happen. Lesson learned, don't trust the food to be there. Do not give insulin until the food is actually in front of you. Unfortunately this was learned at the expense of my child. She experienced the roller coaster because I made a mistake. That really hurts and makes me feel immensely guilty. If something had happened to her I would never forgive myself.

After getting her sugar back up to 94 I had to go home for a quick cry and some angry words and venting to Josh. I asked him to go stay with her since I was carrying alot of emotions and now had puffy eyes and wanted to vomit from feeling so horrible about the whole thing. Over the next 3 hours we had to feed her Gatorade and uncovered carbs to keep her above 70 because of the water slide. Then they had pizza, and THEN finally the cake. -Sigh- I think we must have poked her poor little finger 15 times during a 4 hour birthday party. That makes me very angry at this damn disease. We have had birthday party success the last several times and I guess I had gotten too comfortable. I guess with Diabetes comfortable can be dangerous when the party plans change. Fix the high or low, move on. But somehow I always carry these scary times with me and it takes awhile to feel safe again. Just another bad Diabetes experience that will forever be etched into my mind and never forgotten.