Diabetes and Sick Days – Hugging the Cactus

Forget “a diabetes first” as the title for this blog post – “a first” would suffice. That’s because I experienced *drumroll please* my very first stomach bug this past weekend! (At least, the first one that I can remember; most certainly, the first of my adulthood.)

I don’t know how I caught it and honestly, as I sit here and write this, it’s taking the very little energy I have to summarize what I dealt with over the weekend. But here’s the short version: I was out shopping with my partner on Friday evening. On our drive home, I grew increasingly nauseous and essentially bolted it to the bathroom when we made it home. I won’t cover all the gory details here, but basically, I was pretty ill for many hours. Food and drink quickly became out of the question for me, and even though my stomach was churning relentlessly, I still had enough mental bandwidth to check my blood sugar every so often to make sure it wasn’t climbing or falling.

Much to my relief, my blood sugar was the only thing that remained stable all weekend long. As I fought through waves of nausea, I was grateful that I didn’t have any insulin on board as an additional factor to contend with. It seemed like my diabetes knew I was going through enough, so the least it could do was play nice while my body dealt with the bug as best as it could.

I’ve slowly reintroduced foods into my diet today – I never would’ve thought I’d be so simultaneously excited and nervous to eat saltine crackers, rice, or plain chicken – and I’m still amazed at how my diabetes seems to be cooperating as I continue to recover. Granted, this could be because I’m eating very simple carbohydrates and not many at one time, but still. I’m appreciative of the fact that I can rest up without worrying as much about my blood sugar levels.

Don’t get me wrong, though…as nice as it was to have approximately 48 hours of in-range blood sugars (above 80 and below 150 on my own Dexcom graph), I definitely wouldn’t trade them in favor for a stomach bug. I’d much rather put in a little more effort on my own to obtain in-range readings than have to go through that whole ordeal again.

Remember that post I wrote last month about my bout of covid? If not, you can read it here…and then come back to this post for the update.

The update is that my covid experience wound up lasting longer than I thought it would. You see, after completing my doses of Paxlovid, I was starting to feel great! I think I had about 5-7 days of normalcy before things took a turn and I officially got a case of rebound covid.

That’s right, it came back to haunt me. On a Sunday, days after finishing my Paxlovid, I noticed that my throat began to feel a little funky again. It was just as tingly as it felt at the initial onset of covid, which was a sign to me that perhaps I wasn’t out of the woods just yet.

I spent most of May feeling…a bit under the weather.

Sure enough, the next couple of days my symptoms intensified slightly. Only they were a different set of symptoms compared to my first round – this time, I was dealing with an extremely itchy and agitated nose. It could’ve been so much more worse, and I’m grateful it wasn’t, but my mental health seriously suffered when I took another at-home covid test that Monday and learned I was still positive.

At that point in time, I’d been in isolation for three weeks. This meant I’d have to complete another 10 days, at a minimum.

I was devastated. I was missing my family and friends. I felt like a prisoner in my own home, bound here because it was the right thing to do in order to protect my loved ones, but also resentful of how confined I was because overall, I really didn’t feel that bad. But I wouldn’t change a thing about my quarantine period because it was ultimately the only thing I was in control of throughout the whole experience, and having control over whether or not I exposed people to covid provided me a sense of comfort.

I was also extremely distraught because my business trip to New Orleans was rapidly approaching, and I knew I wouldn’t be able to travel again unless I started testing negative. So the following Tuesday after I tested positive again, I began consulting my healthcare team and we decided that I might benefit from receiving a monoclonal antibody infusion to help my immune system recover faster. Just like that, all my hopes became tied to this infusion as I longed for it to both alleviate my symptoms (even Benadryl wasn’t helping my itchy, sneezy nose) and help me produce a negative test as soon as possible.

Fortunately, the infusion did its job. Within 48 hours, I was feeling much more like myself. Even better, four days after receiving it, I began testing negative. I was beyond elated and relieved.

My covid ordeal taught me a few things. Number one, I feel so very lucky that I had access to the means to get better: a capable healthcare team, medical treatment, an understanding employer who let me take as much sick time as I needed, and the like. Number two, I feel similarly lucky that my diabetes seemed totally unaffected by the illness. I can’t imagine how much more difficult (and frustrated) it would’ve been if I’d also been chasing lows or highs. Number three, I’ve got so much more appreciation for the people and things I took for granted prior to my quarantine. I was absolutely giddy the first time I left the house after testing negative, and honestly, that feeling hasn’t changed with every subsequent plan I’ve made in the weeks that have followed.

Most of all, I’ve got a new level of gratitude for my support system: my family, my friends, my partner, and everyone who checked in on me when I was feeling depressed and lonely in quarantine. I would’ve been lost without them.