tears – Hugging the Cactus

I ran a marathon the other day.

Okay, okay, I didn’t – but I sure looked like I did. Isn’t that close enough? One moment, I was sitting at my desk and the very next, I registered beads of sweat forming and dripping down my forehead, back, and chest.

It was pretty disgusting, but also pretty alarming as I knew almost immediately that this was a blood sugar-induced sweat.

In my haze of hypoglycemia, I started reaching for anything and everything that would bring me back up. A leftover Reese’s egg from Eastertime, a handful of Wheat Thins crackers, and a whole bunch of Lucky Charms marshmallows (and I’m serious when I say just the marshmallows, my boyfriend knows how much I love them and bought me a bag of the colorful shapes sans oat pieces not too long ago) were among the items that I ate in hasty desperation, as if the faster I downed them, the sooner it would be for the sweat to evaporate off my body.

The whole episode couldn’t have lasted longer than 10 minutes, but it was an absolute frenzy as I hunted down and devoured each carbohydrate separately. By the time I decided I had eaten enough, I was exhausted, so I collapsed onto my bed in a gross, sweaty heap. I guess that the low blood sugar and the subsequent snacking really took a toll on me, because within minutes, my eyes were drifting shut and I flat-out fell asleep for an unexpected 20 minute catnap.

I woke up to my CGM buzzing, signifying to me that my blood sugar was coming back up. I silenced the alarm, doing my best to snap out of my haze, and felt a little emotional about the ordeal. Tears stung the corners of my eyes, but I did not let them fall as I registered what had just happened. I was embarrassed about the excessive amount of food I’d just eaten to fix a fairly run-of-the-mill low blood sugar. I was mad at myself for losing control. I was stunned that it had knocked me off my feet, literally, and lulled me into an afternoon nap that I wouldn’t have otherwise taken.

Sweat, tears, and blood (sugar)…all within 10 minutes or less. Just like running a marathon, except much, much faster. Guess that makes me some sort of athlete!

C’mon, Molly. Get it together. It’s not called cryabetes. I stared at myself in the bathroom mirror, giving myself an internal pep talk to keep the tears from flowing down my cheeks. I felt a little uneasy on my feet, so holding a steady gaze proved to be challenging after a few moments.

Why was I on the verge of an emotional breakdown? It was all my blood sugar’s fault, of course. For about an hour, I’d been hovering in the upper 60s to lower 70s. There are far worse blood sugar ranges to fall in, but I’d been feeling the classic symptoms of a low for that entire span of time – and it was really testing my fortitude.

My self-talk was fruitless; within seconds, the first few tears escaped from my eyes. It wasn’t long before a couple tears turned into full-fledged bawling. Alarmed by my outburst, my boyfriend tried to calm me down (he was aware of my low blood sugar situation) and attempted to use humor to get the crying to stop. Very quickly, he discovered I was a bit beyond that and that it was best to just let me be sad.

I was sad because I was tired and wanted to go to bed but it didn’t feel safe for me to sleep just yet. Safe to sleep. Can you imagine not feeling safe enough to fall asleep, even in your own bed surrounded by your own blankets in your own room, with your partner nearby?

So the tears came and went because, even though I tried my damnedest, I still felt so out of control in this situation. Not knowing how long it would take my blood sugar to come back up to a level that I felt safe to sleep at, not knowing what exactly caused this predicament in the first place, and not being capable of being mentally stronger than my diabetes all in that moment in time got to the best of me.

Definitely very chronically UN-chill of me, right?

Dualitee Apparel

So sure, diabetes isn’t called cryabetes. But that doesn’t mean my emotional lapse – or any emotional lapses related to diabetes – wasn’t warranted. Crying can be healing, and in this moment in time, it was the only thing, oddly enough, that could make me feel a tiny bit better.