The Night I Almost Didn't Wake Up - Chris's Story
Chris's Story of an 858 mg/dl Blood Sugar.
It all started around the winter of 2003, my freshman year of college, the beginning of a trip to the hospital with a blood sugar of over 800. I had no clue what was wrong with me. I was losing almost a pound a day, I was constantly thirsty, I had to go to the bathroom every 15 minutes, constant feeling of heart burn, and could not sleep at night. What is going on with me I kept asking myself. Finally, one morning I went to breakfast and I was feeling fine and took a sip of chocolate milk and my mom just turned totally dry and had the worst case of cotton mouth I had ever experienced, and I said, “Mom, I need to go to the doctor.”Well, that didn’t turn out too great either, my doctor somehow found “no serious problems or concerns”, when I went to her office, which by the way was the last time I was in that office. After a few months like this, I woke up on a normal Friday morning at college. I was playing football for the college at the time, and it was recruiting day so I was scheduled to meet with a recruit to spend the day and night with me at 10:30 a.m. Unfortunately, at about 9:30 a.m. I began vomiting. I figured it was just the flu and I would be fine the next day, so I had to give the recruit to somebody else. I had vomited about 6-7 times throughout the day.
It was at about 11:00 p.m. Friday night at college and I was still vomiting and luckily one of my suitemates decided not to go out and said, “You look like death, I’m taking you to the hospital.” I wanted to call my parents before I went to the hospital and I told them what was going on and my dad turned a 2 hour drive into less then 90 minutes on the Pennsylvania Turnpike.Finally, I made it to the hospital and they took blood work, and immediately rushed me into a room, which if anyone who goes to an emergency room knows, you usually wait forever. I was immediately put on an insulin drip, and within 10 minutes the ER doctor came to me and said, “From the results we see in your blood work, it is definite that you are a Type 1 Diabetic.” Diabetes???!!!??? What the hell is that, I think I heard of it before, isn’t it something that mean
s I can’t eat candy and ice cream or something like that. That was pretty much my reaction. The next thing the doctor said to me didn’t make much sense at first, but he told me that my blood sugar level was at 858. What he told me next is what changed my life forever. He said, “If you fell asleep tonight, without going to the hospital, you would be dead or in a coma. You are about one regular Coke away from a coma.” Those words will never be forgotten for the rest of my life.
