Sunday, May 6, 2012

WARNING: When the Fear takes hold

For some reason lately my internal alarm clock is off. I have been waking at 5am.  That is about two hours after the latest time that I would normally wake up. I am not sure what is going on. The first day it happened, I panicked.  The second day it happened, I panicked and then remembered that it was a weekend and the last test would have been done by son less than four hours ago.  The third day was today and I will have to fix this trend fast!

When I woke this morning, I found my son's bg level was the dreaded 5 (90).  You know? That perfect number that you don't know which way it will go and you quickly drive yourself insane wondering? Normally I would have stayed awake for a bit to retest, check and see what was going on. Today I was tired. I was worn out and I literally prayed for the best as I headed back to bed.

I woke up a few hours later with the intention of checking to see where his bg levels were but I fell back to sleep. When I finally woke up again, I lay there heavily buried in guilt.  The what ifs began....

What if he did drop lower while I selfishly slept?
What if he seized while I dreamed  peaceful walks?
What if he didn't wake up when I went to check on him?
What if he had brain damage?
What if my sweet, quirky young son was hurt because of my selfish desire to rest a little longer?
This would ruin my oldest son's graduation celebrations in a few weeks.
I would never celebrate a birthday again because I had done this. It would be all my fault.

Plagued by all of the horrific sceneiros racing through my mind, I quickly headed across to his room.  As I entered, he stretched and yawned. He held out his hand for me to test but pretended to remain asleep. I lanced. Not enough blood. I lanced again. I squeezed. I waited. He was 6.5 (115ish).  He was fine. There was no coma, no brain damage--just a perfectly fine teen desperate to sleep until his mother peels his body off of his mattress.

I took a cleansing breath and headed off to the couch to sit and regroup for a bit.  This disease can drive you crazy. I thought I was doing well at living in the now.  Not letting it freak me out very often any more. I thought I was rolling with the punches pretty well. I guess we all have our days.  Today was mine. Tomorrow will be better.

2 comments:

  1. Oh, been there, done that Barb. And I agree about the dreaded, middle of the night 5!! A 4 you know you need to deal with. A 6 is probably fine. But a 5?? Which way will it go?? And I think we will always have those feelings of panic and guilt as long as our kids are under our roof. And probably even more panic once they're not...

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  2. Agree with that statement, more panic once they're not. Personally, if 90, I either give a bit of juice to bump her up or reduce temp basal for two hours, just a tad. If I know in advance I am too tired to make it through. There have been many times when I sleep through intending to get up. If your body is too tired, it can sleep through multiple alarms. I try to make sure I get some rest somehow, one of my top priorities, during the day or even early evenings. I wonder how these kids are going to do it and hold down a full-time job. I have read on this topic on some of the adult blogs and the consensus seems to be that most of them don't do night checks. I can only hope it is because they become more stable overnight once the growth hormones stop. At least I hope that's why.

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