A Drowsy Low

It happened again. I knew it would. That is how Diabetes works. You think all is fine and then all of the sudden, it acts up and misbehaves.

Vince had a low this morning. A really bad Low. A 40 low. He doesn’t see many lows like that anymore. It was shortly before I got up for work. His CGM was beeping away. We both tend to ignore it at night right now because they are almost always false alarms. Well, Vince finally got up and realized he was low. He sat on the edge of the bed and I asked him what he was doing. He wouldn’t answer. I asked him again. And again. Still no answer. Just as I was about to lose my cool, he said he was low. I asked him if he needed help and he said no, he would be ok. So he got up and went to the kitchen. As soon as I saw the light go on and knew he was getting something to eat, I drifted off back to sleep. I woke up some time later (not sure how long, but it wasn’t too long) to my alarm clock for work. He was still in the kitchen. I went out and asked if he was okay. He said he was 40 but he had eaten and was alright.

‘Then why was he still in the kitchen’ I thought? Well, good old neuropathy medication at its best was doing what it does best. Making him super drowsy. He was nodding in and out of sleep while standing at the kitchen counter. In these moments, I have been known to lose my cool and get aggravated with him. He doesn’t even realize he is sleeping so when I tell him to go to bed he says right away ‘I’m fine. I’m not sleeping.’ When he clearly is. So I got him to the bed and he wanted to floss his teeth. ‘Ok, be patient Sandy’, I thought. He started rocking back and forth in his drowsiness state so I suggested he just lay down and go to sleep. Well, that he did but he took the toothpick with him. As he is picking his teeth, laying down, he starts to doze off. I wake him up and ask him to put the tooth pick down so he doesn’t hurt himself. He is upset and frustrated with me. He insists he is not dozing off. Then it turns into a fight. All I want to do is keep him safe. So he puts it down and I storm off.

It’s not fair. We never fight when he is in a normal state of mind. It is the darn medication and the side effects that cause tension. A fine line between me keeping my cool and keeping him safe and him trying so hard to take care of himself so he doesn’t feel like a child is a tough line to walk.