A Type One Walked into a Bar

Yesterday something happened at work which suddenly made me reflect on the progress the recent changes I've made to my lifestyle, and life with diabetes, have awarded me. 

While the last couple of weeks have been a bit bumpy as I adjust to going lower carb than ever before, yesterday I was comforted in my decision to do this.

One of my colleagues saw me absently staring out the window… (I was contemplating ‘to coffee or not to coffee’…the blank staring probably should have been enough to make my decision really) and thinking that I was staring at the people sitting outside, she said to me:

‘Yes, that girl out there just ran in here, came up to the bar and said ‘I need sugar, I need sugar!’.

She then stood for a moment smiling at me, with one of those ‘knowing’ smiles.

I blinked back vacantly… (again with the coffee cue – I clearly needed one!)

And as if to 'dah!', my colleague exclaimed ‘She’s a diabetic, Type 1!’, before walking off.

Turning back to look at the girl sitting outside, it was then that I actually noticed her clutching a can of coke. And suddenly my memory was jolted, I thought to myself  ‘wow, its been a really long time since I’ve experienced that kind of panic’. 

It didn't seem that long ago, that that could have been me, in a panic, downing a whole can of soft drink sometimes... way too much glucose and a golden ticket to the big beast of diabetes roller coasters. But no, it had been long enough that I hadn't even immediately caught on to what my coworker was saying!

I pondered for a moment, on that particular kind of panic, the panic of a low blood sugar in public, in unfamiliar surrounds. The panic of running into the nearest bar, café, supermarket, whatever and pleading, demanding or bargaining with the nearest staff member for whatever seemed 'sweetest', or diving into a supermarket or corner store, cracking into the nearest thing with sugar in it, before paying of course. I didn't care how much sugar was in whatever I could grab, all I was thinking was 'Just bring me UP!' (I'll deal with the consequences later) or just a mental plea to 'Please Save Me'.

That plummeting feeling, the type that I felt panicked was going to catch me, before I could catch it. Where sometimes I would imagine my entire life was balancing on the edge of a cliff - would I fall off this time or pull myself back to safety? Where my face would turn slightly numb, my vision went weird, I felt floaty and light, or things became crazy noisy and I tried incredibly hard to remain incredibly focused on obtaining that one thing I needed most. Glucose.

I'm not saying I never go low, never wake up in a cold sweat, never pop a jellybean here and there, or never feel slightly afraid. But since going low carb I don't have anywhere near the intensity nor the frequency of severe lows (and then highs) that I used to. And with that comes less fear, less panic, less stress. 

Touch wood. That's a big low carb perk that's working for me. And I couldn’t be happier.