Tag: alone

5 Tips for People with Diabetes Who Live Alone

mollyt1d1 Comment

This was originally published on Hugging the Cactus on January 6, 2021. I’m sharing it again today because there seems to be a lot of stigma about people with diabetes who live alone. I wrote this post because I wanted to reassure other people who live with diabetes and who might be nervous about living alone. I was definitely scared when I moved out of my parents’ home for good, but I’ve learned lessons along the way that really helped me become comfortable with it and enjoy it more. Read on for my perspective…

For the first time in my entire life, I’m living alone. (Well, I have my puppy Violet to keep me company, but no other humans.)

The prospect of living by myself always freaked me out a little bit, mainly because of the fears I have about diabetes and the “what ifs”: What if my blood sugar goes too low and I can’t get help? What if I’m sick or spilling ketones and need someone to assist me? What if “something bad” (pick any bad scenario here that you can think of) happens, and because I live alone, I can’t take care of myself?

With these questions lurking in the back of my mind, I decided to do something about my worries. I moved into my new place a couple of months ago and since then, I’ve come up with some strategies on how to manage my concerns about living alone with diabetes that have provided both peace of mind and confidence in my ability to thrive in my new home.

Tip #1: Utilize the Dexcom Share feature. This is the best thing that I have done since moving out of my parents’ home. I had a conversation with them after a particularly frightening middle-of-the-night low, and we all agreed that it would be wise for me to invite my dad to follow my blood sugars using Dexcom Share. My favorite part about this arrangement is that my dad and I discussed what we were both comfortable with in terms of data sharing – we decided that it wasn’t necessary for him to view my blood sugar graph at all times, but that he should get alerted when I’m below 50 or above 400. It makes me feel so much safer knowing that he will know if and when those situations should happen, and that he will be able to help me (albeit, from a slight distance) if I can’t help myself.

Tip #2: Keep low snacks all over the place. I keep low snacks on every floor of my condo (the main floor, upstairs, and in my basement) and right next to my bed on my nightstand. It might seem like overkill to have juice boxes, gummy snacks, and glucose tablets all over the place, but the point of that is I never know when a bad low blood sugar will strike, and it’s much easier to walk a few steps to get a low treatment than to walk up or down a set of stairs. I’m able to treat lows very quickly using this method, and since my fear of low blood sugars is one of my biggest concerns about living alone, this helps me make sure that I can handle them efficiently when they occur.

A bonus tip: Get a dog! Violet helps me manage loneliness and has a (mostly) positive impact on my mental health (I say “mostly” because my pup can be naughty).

Tip #3: Stay organized. It might sound strange that staying organized is a big help when it comes to living alone with diabetes, but I’ve found that it ensures that I’m able to access any of my supplies within seconds, if needed. I don’t have to rifle through drawers or cabinets to find out how many pods I have left, I simply have to walk into my bedroom closet and look at my shelf to see. I also have all of my medical paperwork – receipts, prescriptions, health plan information, etc. – stashed away in a clearly labeled folder in the filing cabinet by my desk, which again makes my life much easier when I need to find particular documentation at a moment’s notice.

Tip #4: Have emergency contacts identified and readily available. Nobody likes to think about something bad happening…least of all me. But I give myself peace of mind by having emergency contacts labeled in my iPhone using the Medical ID feature. If I needed to call one of them, it would simply take the push of a button (and a quick swipe).

Tip #5: Seek support over social media. When in doubt, I’ve had great success turning to my different social media platforms and chatting with others about issues surrounding living alone. Whether I add a story to my IG profile or send out a tweet when I have blood sugar concerns, I know that the diabetes online community will respond with guidance and insight to help me through whatever issue I may be experiencing. There’s something extraordinarily comforting about knowing that even though I’m living alone, I’m never truly alone because of the support I have.

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Fearful and Falling in Target

mollyt1d1 Comment

What do they pump into the air at Target? Is it Afrezza or something? Because that seems like the only logical explanation for the phenomenon that seems to occur to most other fellow T1Ds when we step into a Target store.

Low blood sugars tend to happen at Target. Also known as “Target lows”, they can occur at any Target, big or small, no matter how long or short the shopping trip.

I experienced one last week. And it was severely exacerbated by the fact that I was visiting one in my new city for the first time by myself.

You are a rare gem.
Damn you, Target, for making my blood sugar go low during basically nine out of ten visits.

As you can see from my CGM screenshot, my blood sugar was definitely not low – not even close to it. I was in the mid-250s by the time I headed to the store, which is absolutely NOT where I like to be. But I didn’t take a correction bolus or even raise my basal insulin temporarily, because I guess I just had that feeling about my Target trip. I didn’t bother checking my CGM again after I parked, figuring that I’d do my best to make it a quick trip with minimal purchases.

Forty minutes (I’d been aiming for 20) after I’d stepped into the store and one semi-full cart (oops) later, I started feeling panicky and gasp-y. I told myself no, no, no, I wasn’t going low, I was just maybe reacting strangely to the scent of all the cleansers in the aisle I was occupying. I could deny it all I want, but in the back of my mind, I knew that I needed to pull my cart over, dig through my backpack, and locate my CGM so I could at least be informed of what my blood sugar was doing.

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Honestly, Target and all other retailers should just make glucose tablets free to any shoppers who are having a low moment.

So I did just that. Upon checking my Dexcom app and seeing that down arrow, I practically started hyperventilating. That’s when the following series of thoughts flew through my mind:

Okay, just get to the checkout…

Ugh, why is there only one open?! Guess you’ll have to self-checkout on low brain. Great…

OMG, Molly, you know you can only scan one item at a time…go faster!

You are NOT going to go down in this Target. Not today!!!

By some miracle, I successfully purchased my items and booked it to my car. Once I loaded everything inside, I suspended my insulin and shoved three glucose tablets into my mouth at once, chewing them so fast and furious that it probably deserved its own movie by the same name…(oh, but that’s taken *tee-hee*).

Normally, I would wait for my blood sugar to come back up before even thinking about driving home…but this wasn’t exactly a normal situation. I was on my one-hour lunch break from work, and I was rapidly approaching the 59-minute mark. The rational part of my brain (the way, way, super-far-back part) knew that I would be okay after about 15 minutes or so, but I was just so stressed about being alone in a strange city and wanted nothing more than to return to the safety of my apartment, pronto.

Of course, I had no idea how to actually get home – I needed my GPS to get to and from Target, and I’m sure I’ll need it to get basically anywhere for the foreseeable future – so I plugged my address into my phone’s GPS app.

And yet I STILL managed to take a wrong turn or three as I anxiously drove back to the apartment.

Less than 15 minutes later, I was parked and my shopping bags and I were inside my apartment. And that’s when I fell apart, feeling stupid for letting the low happen and getting lost on the way home…and feeling extra dumb for crying so hard about it.

Yeah, methinks that I’ll be running a temporary basal reduction the next time I plan a Target trip. I don’t want to be fearful and falling again any time soon.

 

Should I Have Called 911?

mollyt1d3 Comments

Unintentionally, I set a personal record the other day. I experienced my lowest low blood sugar – 34 mg/dL. I was alone. And it was terrifying.

Around 1 A.M., I woke up to my CGM buzzing and alerting me to what I presumed was a mild low blood sugar. I definitely felt like I was low, so I quickly ate three glucose tablets without checking and confirming my low on my blood glucose meter. And soon after that, things got really weird.

I tossed and turned for 15 minutes as I tried to fall back asleep. But I just couldn’t get comfortable. To make matters worse, a bizarre, numb sensation invaded my left arm. As I became more and more aware of it, my breathing started to run a bit ragged – almost like I was having a panic attack. Between the breathing and the numbness, I knew something was very wrong.

Should i have called 911_
What would you have done in this situation?

So I bolted upright in bed and grabbed my meter and kit to do a blood sugar check. And that’s when the number 34 popped up on the screen. I swore out loud, and almost immediately began sweating profusely. As beads formed around my hairline and streams trickled down my back, I reached for my bottle of glucose tablets as well as my phone. I ate three more tablets – wondering why the three I’d eaten 15 or so minutes ago seemed to have no affect – and contemplated dialing 911. After all, I was completely alone and there was no telling whether I’d pass out or need assistance from someone. In that moment in time, I craved talking to someone, anyone, who might be able to stay on the phone with me while I waited for my blood sugar to come back up.

Like a complete idiot, though, I decided not to call 911 and instead took to Twitter…*insert face palm here*. I know what you’re thinking, why the eff did I do that? Two reasons: 1) I wasn’t exactly thinking clearly and 2) I knew that someone, somewhere, within my diabetes online community would be awake and possibly willing to talk to me.

Thank goodness my intuition was right…my sweet friend, Heather, who I had the pleasure of meeting IRL five years ago, responded to my tweet a few minutes after I posted it. She offered to call, but by this point in time, I had made it downstairs and into the kitchen just fine and was helping myself to a cupcake I’d baked earlier in the day (oh, how convenient my passion for baking can be…sometimes). I exchanged a few tweets with her back and forth, and before I knew it, 45 minutes passed from the onset of my scary low blood sugar symptoms. I ambled back upstairs to my bed and checked my blood sugar before getting settled back into it. I was surprised to see I was only 72; after all, I’d consumed about 50 grams of carbohydrates in the last hour, and for me, that’s a lot! Most of my meals don’t even contain that many carbs!

Bemused and exhausted, I slumped against my bed frame and distracted myself by scrolling aimlessly through social media channels. My body and my mind craved rest. Much to the relief of both, I was able to get it before long, once I got confirmation from my CGM and my meter that I was finally above the 100 mark. I knew that I’d likely go up much higher (and I certainly did, waking up at 289 the next morning), but at the time, I just didn’t care. All that mattered was that I was going to be okay.

I’ve been reflecting on the incident on and off the last few days. I’m trying to process what happened and how it happened – was it my new Metformin that triggered it? Was it stress that I had experienced earlier in the day manifesting itself? I drank one beer before I went to bed, could that have done it? Did I take too much insulin before bed, even though I was certain I hadn’t? Lord knows that it could’ve been any combination of those factors, or none of them…but I can tell you this: I haven’t taken Metformin since it happened out of fear. I’ll talk to my endocrinologist soon and revisit my dosing plan with her. I can also tell you that, even as I continue to process the entire ordeal, I’m feeling so lucky that I was lucid enough to take proper care of myself. I know there are many other T1Ds who can’t say the same and have experienced much more awful low blood sugar incidents, so I’m simply counting my blessings right now.

What would you have done, had you been in my shoes? Would you have called 911, a family member, a friend? Would you have waited it out?

An Incident I Won’t Forget

mollyt1d1 Comment

Low blood sugars are funny. Not ha-ha funny, but peculiar in how they affect me physically and mentally.

A few weeks ago, I had an experience with a particularly scary low. It frightened me so much that I’m only just getting around to writing about it now, because I needed some time to gather my thoughts on what happened.

I’ll set the scene: I was home alone. I had eaten a carb-heavy dinner and decided to do a 30-minute, high-intensity workout. This was definitely far from my best idea ever, because due to the high-carb intake, I had a lot of insulin on board. That, coupled with the exercise, meant that my blood sugar was bound to crash soon after completing the workout.

And it sure did.

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Falling rapidly.

I had just stepped out of the shower and wrapped myself in a towel when I began to feel it. That sudden wave of weakness, shakiness, and dizziness. I walked to my bedroom, grabbed all of my diabetes supplies and my cell phone from my purse, and sank down to the floor with everything in front of me. I knew it would be wise to just sit there for as long as I needed, because I was afraid to go down the stairs (and possibly fall down/hurt myself in the process) in that state.

I checked my CGM, which confirmed that I was dropping quickly. I stared at the screen, panic flooding throughout my body. It occurred to me that I should probably do a finger stick check to make sure I was really that low, so I did, and saw that I was 60 mg/dL.

 

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The scene of the incident.

Now, I’ve absolutely been lower than 60 before. It’s never a pleasant experience. But rather than using that as a comforting thought, I couldn’t help but dwell on how terrible I felt and how frightened I was to be home alone with at least four more units of insulin still working in my system.

All I could do was chew four glucose tablets, suspend my insulin delivery, and wait.

In that period of time, I was totally immobilized.

I’ll never forget how alone I felt, how out of control I felt.

I felt powerless against my diabetes. My own body.

I’ll never forget the fear that consumed me, that nearly prevented me from helping myself in this situation.

I’ll never forget texting my mother and my boyfriend, telling them what was happening, and expressing how scared I felt.

I’ll never forget bursting into tears when they didn’t reply quickly enough.

I’ll never forget turning to my T1D Twitter buddies for help by sending a tweet about what was happening, or how swiftly and comfortingly they responded to me.

And I’ll never forget how I let my mind drift as I wondered whether I’d be okay.

It sounds totally dramatic, especially for a low that, in the grand scheme of things, could’ve been much worse. I can admit that.

But I can also admit that this is one of the few times in my life that I felt truly terrified of my diabetes, and swept up in the fact that things can change so quickly with this condition that it can quite literally knock you off your feet.

Obviously, I recovered just fine that night. The glucose tablets did their trick and my low symptoms subsided. It took longer for me to calm myself down, to breathe normally, non-panicky breaths. At least my puppy was around to soothe me.

I was fine, I will be fine. But I won’t forget this incident, ever.