Memories?

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Munjeeta

Munjeeta

Well-Known Member
Relationship to Diabetes
Type 1
Having just acknowledged the 15th anniversary of my diagnosis, it got me thinking about how, since I was only 11 when I was diagnosed, the majority of my memories are tinged with diabetes. I thought of the 4 most vivid diabetes related ones and wondered if anyone had any of their own?!

1) My highest ever level as a diabetic (aside from on diagnosis)... I was age 16, on holiday in Australia, tested my blood and I was 33.3 😱

2) On my school German exchange, again high blood sugars and being so desperate for the loo for soooo long, and repeatedly asking my teacher to stop somewhere for me to wee... Eventually she realised I was desperate and stopped while I hopped over a wall. Possibly the most embarrassing thing EVER!

3) The night before I started uni, in the excitement of it all, I took 36 units of short acting insulin rather than long acting... I was up till 5 am drinking can after can of coke, we even had to do an emergency run to the local garage to restock. I've never felt so sick!

4) Chasing my needle-phobic friend around her garden with my injection. Just becaue I could!! :D
 
Great thread topic Munjeeta

1/ getting my first HI reading on my meter really shook me i was worried sick

2/ getting through my first xmas with no huge difficulties

3/the day i went through my cupboards and fridge and emptied all the rubbish food out of the house, was like a huge weight had been lifted.
 
The ones that stand out in my mind relate to being mistaken for a druggie:-

a) Some friends went into a Wimpey to wait for me whilst I injected in my friend's car. When I looked up I saw a policeman looking through the window. Some public spirited woman (no jobsworth) had looked in the car (why?) seen me and seeing a policeman told him someone was taking drugs in the car.

b) Going to see the Rolling Stones at an open air concert. I decided it would be sensible to use the St. John's ambulance to avoid any problems. It did not!

c) I went to stay with some friends in Derbyshire. When I got there I found I had forgotten my disposable syringes and went to their local chemist. Despite me having a MedicAlert bracelet he refused to sell me any as he suspected I might have stolen it so that I could obtain syringes to inject illegal substances. Fortuneately he sold me some when I returned with the insulin vials and my friends.

d) Being banned from a number of pubs when someone decided I was a drug dealer.

It always seemed to be a case of guilty until proven innocent. My shoulder length head of hair maybe did not help!
 
1. Highest ever insulin level: HIGH. Readable level was probably 35. This has happened 10-15 times but I have been Diabetic 16 years...!
2. Packing up my house when we moved in 2008 - I stayed up til 5.30am. I tested my blood it was 1.2! I remember running down the stairs and saying to my mum, 'Guess what my blood is?!'
3. Doing my blood in the middle of the night and the meter just saying 'LOW', and me thinking 'but I feel fine'. And then trying to stand up to get some fruit juice but not being able to move!
4. Having DKA when I was eleven. When the doctor put the IV in he missed the vein and my hand swelled to the size of a pumpkin. Then he put it in the other hand and it happened again!!! Not fun!
5.Going to camp when I was 9 and the staff not letting me have my meds. I had to trek across a field to a medical tent to take my insulin every morning and evening. The first aider there always looked so suspicious of me! And in the beginning she said she should inject for me. I was like 'NO thank you...!'
6. Asking my mum how much insulin I should take when I was 6 and thinking she said 70 instead of 7.... merengues and coke for dinner that night!!!
 
Ooh just thought of another one:

7. When I was in Year 4 my school decided to put lunch into 2 blocks so the younger kids went in for the first half hour and us older ones went in after. Back then there wasn't carb counting so I was on two injections a day and had to stick to strict mealtimes or I would go low... so when it got to 1pm and I hadn't had lunch yet I started to go hypo. I don't remember any of this but apparantly I made it to the lunch table (it was one of those round flip-tables on wheels that folded away), sat down, screamed, threw my lunchbox across the room, kicked the table so it flipped and then fell off my chair into a dead faint. I remember coming to: I was in my brother's classroom and they were feeding me yoghurt. My little brother thought I was dead and was crying his eyes out bless him!

My mother went nuts at the school and asked why on earth didn't they call an ambulance?! Meal times were changed back the next day 🙂
 
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these stories are brilliant.

1. age 10, passing out in the local mcd's; i had gone swimming before with my mum and sister, but i had (unbeknownst to my mum) decided not to eat the chocolate bar as i thought it was too old. yep, an hour or so later, i was passed out across the counter at mcd's with an ambulance on the way. they gave us a ride back to our car in the ambulance though :D a very kind man gave my mum a mars bar as he was diabetic and knew from looking at me that i was hypo.

2. age 16, going hypo at school, walking home with my sister, crying the whole way back. i knew i was low so i ate 2 chocolate bars when i got back home. after that i passed out on the sofa, my sister (13 at the time) couldn't wake me up so she called my dad, who called paramedics and my mum (who was working a late shift). i remember waking up to two paramedics trying to take the quilt off me, i was pulling it back off them!

3. age about 8 or 9, passing out at my mum's friend's house. i had eaten so much crap (it was a birthday party or something) i registered as HI on the machine, and threw up all over my mum's dinner plate. yum!

4. age about 10, i went low on a walk back from town with my mum. i walked through a massive patch of stinging nettles, then i came round at the top of the stairs to find my dad propping me up, telling me i had just punched him in the chest in my attempt to get away from him. oops.

5. age about 6 or 7, again passing out at school. i don't remember it, but apparently i hit the teacher in the face, as the next day she had a black eye. oops!

6. going to a friend's house for tea whilst my parents were working late, and discovering i hadn't packed a syringe. my mum's friend took me on a mad rush to the nearest pharmacy and luckily he gave us some!
 
shiv said:
5. age about 6 or 7, again passing out at school. i don't remember it, but apparently i hit the teacher in the face, as the next day she had a black eye. oops!
Click to expand...

Go Shiv! lol.

8. The first time I fainted my mum was worried sick and ran to get our nextdoor neighbour, who I kicked upon waking! And then I broke the best teapot lol
 
1. I remember being diagnosed. I was 19 and living on my own. I got sent home from work because I was very weak and exhausted. I made an appointment for the next day and proceeded to eat an entire blackforest gateau to myself. Needless to say it didn't take very long for me to feel 10 times worse! The doctor told me he suspected I was diabetic so took a blood test and rang me to confirm the next day. Heh, he called me on my mobile and demanded I go to hospital as he'd booked me in. I had a black top on with blurry white writing on it that drove my DSN nuts hehehe.

2. My first stealth hypo. The one where you feel perfectly fine until you test your blood and actually see it at 2.6 then promptly fall over as if your body just went "Oh yeah, I'm supposed to wobble now!".

3. I worked as a lighting engineer with another diabetic who was a sound engineer. We used to joke that if we both had a hypo it would go very dark and very quiet at the same time. Never happened though as we used to watch out for each other. I did have a paddy and throw my test meter at him once because I was so far gone I couldn't get the blood on the strip! It went everywhere else though!

4. Having my first child (I say me but it was my wife obviously). I was so scared that she was going to be a diabetic I knew it was unlikely but I know I'd have blamed myself if she was. Never been so scared!

5. Waking up in the middle of the night totally uncertain as to whether or not I took my Lantus. Actually I've done this a few times and I hate it. Roll on pump!!!!
 
6. Going to the garage at 4 in the morning purely on auto pilot. My brother used to follow me to make sure I was okay bless him. Heh and I'm sure the garage dude thought I was stoned!!!
 
Good thread! I like the insulin overdose stories. Mine are work related, sorry...

1. The look on a new guy's face at work when he saw me injecting.. he knew the guy next to me was diabetic, but didn't know about me. He thought I was just "trying out" taking his insulin!

2. Bolussing for a bacon butty at 9am, then it didn't turn up til 11am (someone else was collecting it) and being stuck in a very intense meeting in the mean time starting to feel more and more vague. These days I'm more assertive about it when I need to eat something, and I don't bolus til it's in front of me!
 
A few hypos i can remember but the 'best' was when i was driving down country lanes in Cornwall on holiday. I'd pulled to one side to let traffic through but had obviously been driving eratically. My wife grabbed the steering wheel and demanded i STOP THE CAR!
I was sure there was nothing wrong with me and an argument ensued during which i accused my other half of being mad. All the time i was flapping round trying to get the automatic car into drive without success and my wife clinging onto the steering wheel and trying to prevent me from engaging the gear. My 2 kids were in the back with my mother-in-law, so you can imagine the panic going on.
In the end i said, 'right i'll do a test and prove you wrong'. Ooops, 1.3!
Sorry guys.😱
 
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