A Rough Night

[S]leep is the golden chain that ties health and our bodies together.

~Thomas Dekker

When I say that I had a “rough night,” I usually mean something very different than many of my peers (that includes both the “partied too hard and have a hangover” crowd and the “baby didn’t sleep so parents didn’t sleep” crowd). I’ve been up a lot at night with my diabetes.

Last night it was multiple low alarms on my Dexcom and depleting my bedside glucose tablet supply.

Other nights, it’s been slowly battling my numbers with insulin in the fall out of a bad infusion site. Setting an alarm for every two hours to test and take more insulin is less than fun, but the last thing I wanted to do was let the numbers do whatever they wanted and end of sick.

Then some nights, it’s because I wear a medical device and it woke me up when I rolled onto it. Sleeping with an OmniPod under your back is much like laying on a rock.

When I was a teenager, I used to have serious sleeping problems. I was awake for 48 hours straight at one point in my senior year because I couldn’t turn off my brain and sleep. College was not conducive to positive sleeping habits, so when I’d graduated and settled into married life, I started sleeping better.

Now diabetes is getting in the way of a good night’s sleep. When I don’t sleep well, my body gets stressed and my diabetes responds… and my Dexcom buzzes more. It’s a vicious cycle.

I would dream of sleeping soundly if I could.