DBlog Week Day 3

Today we’re going to share our most memorable diabetes day. You can take this anywhere.... your or your loved one's diagnosis, a bad low, a bad high, a big success, any day that you’d like to share. 

This story happened three years ago. So much has happened since then...I can't believe that I'm the same girl. Back then, I had reactive hypoglycemia...now I have diabetes, even if we don't know what kind yet. Anyway, it goes something like this:

I was a senior in high school, and I had a HUGE college interview that day. Like, really big--for a program that has a lower acceptance rate than Harvard. They accept 15 students per year. They only interview 90. My entire school was ecstatic that I was actually going to this interview. (FYI, I went to a small girls high school--there were 200 students in the entire school. We were close-knit.)

So I got up crazy early and did my hair. It was loooong, and I straightened it. I packed clothes for the interview (we had a strict dress code). I packed a bag to take to the interview. Food and candy and my meter were in that bag. 

I got myself a double shot latte at the local Starbucks before I got on campus. Back then, caffeine really annoyed my blood sugar. Caffeine plus exhaustion usually equalled lows. But I was fine during the interview. 

As I left campus, I wondered if I should eat something. None of the food in my bag appealed to me, and I decided against going to Starbucks for the second time that day; I headed to the train, instead. 

Of course, I got on the wrong train. (I'm SO not a city girl!) I figured out where I could transfer to and got off there. 

And as I stood waiting for the train, a voice in my head whispered, If you don't step back, you're going to faint into the train tracks. 

I took a large, shaky step back. I knew I was low. I didn't know how low. I thought about eating the food from my back, and decided that it still didn't appeal to me. I wasn't going to eat the candy unless I tested, and I was too embarrassed to test in public. 

So I got on the new train, knowing I was low but not doing anything about it. I was still too embarrassed to test. (I test on the train All. The. Time. now. I can't believe I used to freak out about it!)

I got off a stop early so I could grab lunch at a nice cafe on the way to school. Needless to say, I could't find the cafe. After wandering after it for nearly half a mile, I gave up and went to school. 

At every candy stand I passed, the voice urged me to get a candy bar. At the Walgreens I passed, it told me to go in and get orange juice. I'm pretty sure I was talking to myself out-loud at this point, but I told it to shut up, that I'd have juice at school and everything would be fine.

I finally got to school, having walked nearly 3/4 of a mile while seriously low--low enough to be too low to know how low I was (how confusing it that??). I walked in, and at that moment I realized that the only thing keeping me conscious had been the frigid February air, and that the warm school air was...definitely not that.

I made a dash for the teacher's kitchen, where I knew they kept juice. One of the administrators tried to ask me how the interview had gone as I rushed past the office, and I just called back that I needed juice. 

They didn't have juice. I had a cup of regular Coke. I stood there, shaking, for a half an hour. I never did test to see how low I was, but I know it was pretty darned low.

More than the serial lows I've had, sometimes for hours or days at a time, this low scared me more than anything. In it, I was too low to understand just how bad things were. I was too low to be smart and eat something. I was too low to suck it up and just TEST. 

That's what I get for being a stupid 17 year old. But things are different now. I test anywhere and everywhere, and I don't care who sees. I've dumped a roll of candies in my hand and shoved them into my mouth while I was sitting in the front row of a lecture hall. I've drank juice boxes on the train, my feet swinging like I'm five years old. I'm not afraid anymore.

But boy, was this low memorable.