Looking Back: Telling Off the Paramedics.

A few things: 

This post is almost ten years old, which is unsettling on its own accord.

It also documents the only time in my 27 years with type 1 diabetes that paramedics needed to be brought in to assist, and mostly because my roommate needed help getting me to eat, not because I was unconscious.

I miss Abby and her magical, glucose-sniffing powers.

The day after this low blood sugar happened, I drove to the fire station and thanked the paramedics profusely for their help, and apologized just as profusely for my actions. They said they see it all the time. The fact that they see it all the time and continue to do what they do to help people makes me respect their profession, and all HCPs, even more.

Apologies for the language used. As you know, I wouldn’t swear unless I was low.

*   *   *

Abby. My cat.

She has never missed a low blood sugar. There have been times when I was so low that beads of sweat collected on my forehead, making my face clammy and my t-shirt damp with panic. Usually my body wakes itself up in time, leaving me just enough energy to stumble out to the kitchen and pour a glass of juice. But sometimes I don’t wake myself up.

That’s where Abby has never failed me.

She will sit on the pillow above my head, wailing like a banshee. “Meow!” She paws fiercely at my head and nudges my face with hers. I usually come around as she is pressing her nose fervently into my ear. “Me-ow!” More insistently now. She won’t stop wailing until I am trudging through the living room towards the kitchen. Siah hasn’t figured out this trick yet. But I’m sure she will in time. Or maybe Abby is just in tune with the way my body starts to panic.

Sometimes I feel waves. The ones that gently undulate and lap at the shores of my consciousness. I focus what is left of my resolve on remaining awake, waiting for the juice to take effect. Those are the worst ones. The ones where I am afraid I am going to pass out.

I’ve never passed out. In almost two decades of diabetes, I have never been unconscious. Of course it may happen. It could happen to any of us. But I have come close.

There have been some tricky lows, though.

There was one that I had in January of 2003, while I was living with my ex-boyfriend. The alarm clock went off in the morning, but I didn’t stir. He got up to turn it off. Usually I lean right over and grab my kit off the nightstand so I can test my blood sugar, but that morning I wasn’t moving at all. He had dated me for six years and he knew the signs of a serious hypoglycemic episode, so he immediately woke up and tested me himself. My bloodsugar clocked in at 44 mg/dl. He went downstairs and grabbed a glass of juice.

“Kerri, get up. Drink this. You’re low.”

Nothing from me.

“Hey. Drink this.”

Most often, I sit up, obligingly grab the glass, consume the contents with graceless gulping, and fall back upon the pillow until the tides of my sugar rise enough for me to sit up and say, “How low was I?” This time, I took the glass from his hand, told him to leave me alone, and proceeded to pour the juice all over the bed.

I’m known for being slightly combative when low.

He got another glass of juice. And the phone.

“Kerri, you need to drink this. If you don’t drink it, I am going to call the paramedics. “

After being told, repeatedly, to go fuck himself, [Note: I'm still embarrassed by this.] Roommate dialed 911. Three paramedics showed up, one slightly chubby. I am in bed, at a minimal level of functionality. I don’t remember what happened from here on in, but Roommate told me I was belligerent.

Roommate told them I rang in at 44 mg/dl. They grabbed the red and white tube of InstaGlucose from their med kit and advanced on me. In the throes of my low, I fought them off as best I could. They outnumbered me considerably; it took three paramedics to hold me down well enough for Roommate to administer the InstaGlucose in my fitful mouth. The paramedics let me loose. As the sugary substance absorbed into the inside of my cheeks, I turned to Roommate with a resounding “Fuck you!” I whirled to the most portly of the medics and growled, not unlike Linda Blair, “You too, fatty!”

I came around very slowly. I don’t remember much of how I ended up downstairs, but I am told that I wandered down the staircase and stood at the front door, clutching my blanket around my shoulders and murmuring, “I want my Daddy.” Because that’s not at all embarrassing.

Roommate told the medics that I would be fine in a few minutes, having just tested me and yielding a result of 68 mg/dl. “She’s on the upswing. She doesn’t need to go to the hospital.” To confirm my agreement, I had to sign a release form, stating that I refused to be brought to the hospital. I signed, half in a fog.

Fast forward to me in the shower, getting ready to go to work. The medics are gone. Roommate is sitting on the bathroom counter, monitoring me. I start to remember what happened. We talk about how everything is okay now, and how sometimes a low just sneaks up and destroys me.

I’m feeling much better. A little embarrassed that I was such trouble, but no harm, no foul, right? I smile sheepishly. Safe now. Abby was prowling about on the bathroom floor, making sure everything was okay now.

“Yes, Kerri. You did okay.”

And as the warm water washed away the traces of InstaGlucose from my arms and eased the tension in my muscles, I gasped in shock as I cried, “Oh my God! … I called them fat fucks, didn’t I?”

The laugh from the counter top confirmed.