Well, I guess it wasn't that bad, but it came close.
Yesterday I had my 3-hour glucose tolerance test. You have to fast before these so the blood they draw shows how your body can process a certain amount of sugar in a given time. My test was at 9 am and I hadn't eaten since 9:30 the night before. I felt alright when I went in, just a little hungry.
What happens is first they draw your blood. Then you drink this super sweet stuff as fast as you can (you have 5 minutes) and then wait an hour to have your blood drawn again. Then another hour and another draw. And then a third time. So in three hours: no food, 1/2 liter of liquid sugar, and 4 blood draws (normal size blood draw vials).
I had brought a bagel with me to eat afterward on the way to picking Luke up from a friend's house. I surprisingly wasn't very hungry. I didn't want to eat too much because that could spike my sugar levels. When I got home I had a few eggs because I needed some protein. Then I laid down to take a nap because I was feeling pretty wiped out.
I woke up shaking and drenched in sweat. I knew that if I got up I would faint and I didn't want that - mostly because I knew Luke would be waking up soon and I needed to be able to take care of him. For a few minutes I lay there on the couch thinking "Crap! What the heck am I going to do now?" I had the phone with me so I grabbed it and crawled to the kitchen. Even that made me feel dizzy. When I got there I ate the 1/2 apple in the fridge from the day before and a bunch of chocolate wafer cookies. Then I went into the bathroom to check my sugar. I still have the kit from 2 years ago and thankfully it worked. My sugar reading was 55, where 60 is a very low read. I got out my papers about diabetes and read about the symptoms I was having and found out that I had done the right thing. I drank a glass of milk just in case. Then I called Beth, nurse sister with hypoglycemia. She wasn't there and Luke woke up. I plopped him in front of Bob the Builder with a juice and some crackers and checked my sugar again. It was up to 126, which isn't too high and I was starting to feel less shaky finally.
Needless to say, we ate at Quiznos for supper (thanks to grandma's $20 in a birthday card that came that day).
I have some nice bruises forming in the crooks of my arms. My left arm looks like I got stuck with a fork - 3 holes in a row.
The 2 good parts of the day? Luke played nicely at the friend's house and I got 3 uninterrupted hours of reading.
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2 comments:
So the next time you have to do that test, don't be afraid to eat something afterwards - you don't have to wait. The standard rule is 15g of carbs every 15 minutes to get your sugar up. And sorry I wasn't home!
Oh no, what a horrible scary feeling. It's bad enough feeling weak and thinking you might faint when you're alone. It's another when you have someone that depends on you on top of that. Poor girl.
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