shopping – Hugging the Cactus

This past June, I wrote a blog post about how cleaning is an unexpected blood sugar buster for me – meaning that my levels are guaranteed to start dropping after a prolonged period of tidying.

And just today, I realized that there’s another (perhaps even more unanticipated) blood sugar buster for me…and that would be…

Trying on clothing. Yup! An innocent, well-intentioned act meant to improve my wardrobe resulted in a low blood sugar, and reminded me why I hate shopping for clothes so much.

Before you jump in and say, well of course her levels dropped, she was walking around a store, let me tell you that this store really wasn’t even that large. There were so many racks of clothing strewn about haphazardly that I felt more like I was stumbling my way slowly through a maze as opposed to the laps I can easily take by walking around a Target or a grocery store. My pace was positively snail-like, and I got more and more dragged down over time by the weight of the clothing items I was carrying in my arms.

By the time I got to the dressing room, my energy was going downhill as it had mentally worn me out to search for clothing even remotely close to the style I was looking for. I only had 9 items to try but the prospect of putting on each piece felt daunting. (Let alone doing so while maneuvering around the matchbox-size dressing room; seriously, it was so small that if I spread my arms wide then I would be touching both sides of the room.) With impending senses of claustrophobia due to the teensy room and dread at the notion of trying on new clothes, I also registered that I was getting very, very warm. And a little dizzy.

Was I blacking out from my latest endeavor in clothes shopping, or was it just my blood sugar going low?

Naturally, it was the latter. Something about hauling a haphazard collection of clothing around the store, then trying said clothing on (and getting increasingly frustrated as my “no” pile grew) triggered a low that I wasn’t anticipating, and suddenly my desire to leave the store hit its peak as I knew it was more important for me to take care of myself than to score big on new wardrobe additions.

With a heavy sigh, I paid for the couple of items that I ended up liking enough to want to buy, and made my way to my car where a low snack in privacy was waiting for me. I also walked away musing over this unexpected blood sugar buster and how to prevent it from happening again and again in the future – perhaps with a nice mall snack? A treat from the food court?

Sounds like a nice way to put the fun back into clothes shopping, that’s for sure.

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.

fullsizeoutput_d6b — 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.