The Ones Who Love Us

The other night, Brad was meeting a friend after work, so I stopped at the grocery store on my way home to pick up a few things. My numbers had been stellar all day, so when my Dexcom alerted me to a 70 mg/dL as soon as I pulled into the driveway I wasn’t worried because I was just going to fix a quick dinner and be fine.

Between walking into the house and hanging up my coat, something snapped. There were so many things I had to do before I could eat. I put away the groceries, went down to the basement and emptied the dehumidifier, went upstairs and changed my clothes. Then I fed the cats, got the mail and came back into the kitchen to get a clean plate out of the dishwasher. I got distracted by the dishwasher needing emptied – then I felt hot.

Really, really hot. Finally a functioning brain cell told me to test my blood sugar.

It was 42. OmniPod wouldn’t even let me bolus for the 25 grams of carbs that my dinner had (I’m thankful that it won’t let me bolus with a bg below 50). I did two shots of juice for quick sugar and Brad arrived home to find me standing at the kitchen counter, shaking, sweating and inhaling a plate of nachos. I didn’t even speak, just showed him my Dexcom and kept eating.

When I was back in range, he painted me a picture of what he thought he’d have come home to if he’d been later. It wasn’t pretty. (And I won’t be sharing it with you.)

If my husband had been eating and showed me an electronic device in lieu of saying hello, I’d be pretty upset. We fall into a bit of a routine and I often forget that he’s not just a bystander, he’s actively involved in and informed about my health.

During diabetes awareness month, we try to shed a little light on living with diabetes, but those who love us are aware every day as well. Living with me (a person with diabetes) can be tough, stressful or downright annoying at times. Brad eats low carb with me often, forgoes having sweets around the house on a regular basis, handles fussy lows, accepts numbers in response to “How are you?” and will literally track me down if he is concerned and can’t reach me (yes, my husband has located me using Find My iPhone, no it’s not creepy. It’s sweet.)