Tuesday, November 16, 2010

An Unexpected Workday Low

An hour and a half before lunch, I realized I had forgotten to bolus for the two clementines I ate for breakfast.  I checked my blood and it was a whopping 369 mg/dl. 

"Those damned carby little fruits," I muttered to myself as I programmed my pump to give me a correction bolus.  I went back to doing my work.

My co-worker returned from picking up our lunch at around 1:00pm.  I checked my blood: 102 mg/dl.  I cheered my pump.  "Good work, insulin correction factor!"  I bolused for my six-inch tuna sub and bag of baked Lay's chips.  It was tasty, and I enjoyed my lunch break.

Around 1:45pm, some colleagues from another office dropped in needing work space.  The plan was we were to all meet together to go over some process stuff.  Not a big deal, but a lot to go over on very short notice.  I showed them to the conference room, then as I walked the 15 feet back to my cubicle, I began to feel...off.

A wave of slight nausea and lightheadedness passed over me where I stood.  I felt shaky on my feet.  My heart started beating faster, and I suddenly felt voraciously hungry.  "Oh shit," I thought, "I'm low, and I have to go into a meeting in like 20 minutes.  Wait, am I low?  Because I did everything I was supposed to."  And then, after checking my glucose and finding it at 68 mg/dl only about 30 minutes after my lunch bolus, it dawned on me.  I had overcorrected.  I had corrected myself for being 396 mg/dl, and not the actual number of 369 mg/dl.  I was sinking like a stone, and people needed me to be available soon.

I quickly chomped down five glucose tabs instead of the usual four, and also found two fun-sized Nestle Crunch bars to take the edge off my hunger pangs.  I am NOT saying this is what you should do in this situation, but my time was limited and so was the time of the visiting colleagues.  I can function with a high blood glucose, but NOT a low one.  I ended up so busy for the rest of the afternoon that I did not have a moment to myself to sit down and do a retest.

I did what I had to do, and in the end, I think the meeting with my colleagues was really productive!  My blood sugars for the rest of the day, however, may be another story.

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