Tag Archives: gatorade

Why would you buy me Gatorade… and other hypoglycemia overreactions

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Why would you buy me…I needed more juice in the fridge for low blood sugars and I forgot to pick it up at the grocery last week. My husband said he would stop and get something. He instead brought back a giant bottle of Gatorade. Dun dun dun! I am not sure if this is a “thing” for anyone else, however he learned that this is a really big thing for me. Especially if when he brings it home I happen to be low and rather emotional.

I was never going to drink said juice to enjoy it, so why does it matter. It matters because hypoglycemia, defined as a medical emergency that involves an abnormally diminished content of glucose in the blood or literally low blood sugar, turns a person into one of the following: a sloth, a maniacal robot, a staring contest extraordinaire or….. a giant bitch. In this case, guess which one I was 😉

At the time, with a blood sugar of 50, it seemed like he had made the worst decision a human being could possibly make and I was fairly certain that he had done so on purpose. (It is amazing what taking 1 more unit of insulin than necessary can do to a person.)

Low blood sugars are a real pain in the ass. From waking up at 2am to make sure you’re not low every night, to having a mid-day emotional break down because you didn’t realize you’re at 50 and you can’t remember you email password, lows blow.

Being low is the most emotional part of being diabetic for me. It is the moment when I feel utterly out of control of my body. It feels weak and infantile and foreign and somehow new, every single time. (I understand that when I’m at 307 I’m still technically not in control, but I can at least answer a series of questions and function at a normal level. If I’m at 37 things are a different story.) This vulnerability is the worst part. Not knowing when it’s going to happen, or what miscalculation is going to cause it to occur, can be debilitating if you let it.

My small personal triumphs in fighting the hypoglycemia hellion have been: waking up a 2am (not a real triumph), eating late at night (I know, I know, everyone says it’s awful), and calming down (the most difficult of all). Small but mighty(ish) triumphs.

Dancing with diabetes

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I have been a dancer since before I was diabetic. The first question I asked upon diagnosis was if I was able to continue dancing or not. (My Type 1 diabetic grandmother reminded me of this days before she passed as a constant reminder of needing to live the hell out of my life!)

SONY DSCAs a dancer and a diabetic, this balance has been rather difficult. As a child I sat in the front of the room chewing Starburst candies during ballet rehearsal and as a teenager sipped Gatorade at football games and band rehearsals. In college I gulped down cereal bars and now I quickly chew up fruit strips. Oh how we have evolved 😉

No matter the saving grace substance of the year, the problem will never change or cease to exist. Low blood sugars are a reminder, that in fact, no matter how hard I attempt to muscle up my emotions and put-togetheredness it doesn’t matter. Nature will still get the best of me and pretty much always win. And that’s okay.

Not in a glorious or “it’s beautiful because it’s part of nature way”, but in a “I will survive hey, hey!” way. Fuck diabetes. And having to shoot 16 ounces of orange juice at 6am. And wake up at 2am to make sure I don’t need to. And plan when exactly I’m going to eat lunch so I can shoot up 45 minutes before.

It’s okay in the kind of way that it has to be. And that’s not a pity party. No one should feel sorry for or give a furrowed brow look to their diabetty friend. Give them a wink,  a hug and a cup’o’juice at the moment and maybe a glass of wine at the end of the day. They got this.