Pasta for lunch. I knew it was a gamble, but on a snowy Friday afternoon when I had a bowl of leftover spinach-stuffed ravioli in the fridge that was begging to be heated up, I simply couldn’t resist it.

I took a larger-than-usual lunchtime bolus to account for the heavy carbs. Or at least I thought it’d account for the carbs. But I was way off. Roughly 45 minutes after I gobbled up my meal, my blood sugar was beginning to take off – with no sign of a smooth landing in sight.

Not that I noticed. Rather, I found myself feeling…slow. My eyes felt droopy with a gradual drowsiness that I couldn’t fight off. Normally, this would feel quite pleasant, especially if I was about to take a nap. But on a Friday afternoon, when I had some work items to wrap up, it was far from a welcome sensation.

As I sat there, staring blankly at my monitor and pretending I couldn’t hear my buzzing CGM that was trying to alert me to the current state of my blood sugar, I was falling deeper and deeper into a state of utter sluggishness. I craved the warmth emitting from my space heater by my desk, relishing how the heat lulled me into listlessness.

In that moment, I was the human equivalent of a happy little slug, oblivious to the realities around it and going about life at my own passive pace, without a single other care in the world.

I don’t remember what caused me to snap out of my stupor – perhaps I’d heard my CGM vibrate one too many times, or maybe common sense jolted me into realizing that I had stuff to do and couldn’t afford to be overcome by this sensation. But I did find myself peeking at the number that my Dexcom was reporting to me and being somewhat appalled by my hyperglycemic state, as well as being almost grateful for having a logical explanation for why I’d turned into a slow-moving shell of a person. It’s funny how even after 25 years of diabetes, a high blood sugar can still throw me off my game in such a dramatic way. Luckily, a solid correction bolus, change of scenery from my overly cozy desk in my bedroom to the cooler comfort of my downstairs setup, and a large bottle of water brought me back down to where I needed to be – maybe a bit more slowly than I would’ve liked, but hey, a slug can’t complain about swiftness (or lack thereof).