what was your most awful experience as a diabetic?

[sviskan]

I was reading under the thread "severe hypos" when I came up with the idea to this thread.

My worst experience happened like 3-4 years ago. It was saturday morning and I was waking up. I remembered that my boyfriend had gone to work and that I had taken my basal insulin when he left; now I was alone in the house. I felt totally disoriented. I could hardly move or speak. I knew I was low, but I could not get up. I thought I was going to die. The stupid thing is, that I had a sugary soda in the bedroom reachable from the bed, because I had been going low every other night for quite some time up till this incident. When I after what seemed like hours in my totally messed up mind figured that there was no way I could do anything by my self to get my sugar back up, I started yealling as hard as I could. I started with yealling for help, but my strength was so little that I could not go on for long. So, I finally gave up. I remember thinking "thats it" and then roaring a couple of final roars. Then I just lied in bed moving slowly back and forth and then nothing. I had fallen asleep again from pure fatigue. I woke up when my boyfriend came back home, and knowing me he quickly gave me a drink of soda. I came to my senses; I felt horrible with the worst headache ever, and I just cried and cried. After that I started checking my sugar every day before bed and I never again took my basal and then got back to sleep. Still today I remember this day as the worst in my life.

[Tokyo Cate]

I have had far too many lows for them to really enter in the running (bad me, bad me).

My worst experience was the endo visit the morning after I was first diagnosed. He clearly hadn't read my chart, walked into the room very sternly and businesslike and yelled at me for five minutes telling me that I needed to take better care of myself and take my insulin or I would kill myself. He either hadn't read that I was newly diagnosed or he was a complete 8%#@!>*. I made sure that I had a different endo when I got into the system because I knew that if I ever saw that guy again, I would rip his head off.

On the funny side, a friend of mine is a paramedic and came to treat a low I had in the middle of the night about ten years ago. At that point in my life, I didn't where pjs, but that experience would change that. When I woke up the next day, he had written "Ted was here" on my stomach.

There are all kinds of bumps and bruises that can hit us along our way with this reality; let's hope that we are resilient enough to recover and wise enough to learn from those bumps and bruises.

[Diana]

When I woke up the next day, he had written "Ted was here" on my stomach.



:rofl:

I am absolutely peeing myself laughing at the thought of you waking up the next morning, looking at your stomach, and realising what had happened. What did you say to him when you saw him next?

:rofl:

[belyro]

Well the whole diagnosis thing was pretty traumatic for me as a 3-year-old....but more recently, my two worst experiences both happened due to being sick to my stomach (flu, food poisoning, or something like that) and not being able to manage my BS as a result.

The first time I ended up in the hospital with DKA. I'd been sick (throwing up every 20 min. or so) all night from food poisoning or something like it, but managed to keep my bloodsugar's OK....but the next morning I wanted to take less insulin (basal) so that I didn't have to keep filling my stomach. I didn't take enough, I didn't eat enough (even though I'd stopped throwing up), and I ended up in the hospital with DKA, vomiting again, sharing a room with a smelly guy with an infected foot that had maggots in it. (Not kidding.) It was terrible. The one bright spot of this experience was that there was also a soldier in the room. (It was a room for 3). He had brought in one of his men who had suffered a neck injury, but the man was sleeping and this soldier talked to me and helped me if I needed my water and when I slept he stood there between me and the man he'd brought in and just looked out for both of us. I'm convinced he was my angel that day. I only wish I could somehow contact him and tell him that.

Anyway....the second time it happened I went to the hospital before I got DKA and they put me on IV for a few hours until everything was under control. One thing that really sucked though, is that it was in the U.S. (I'm from Canada) and the doctor didn't know mmol/L measurements and I didn't know mg/dL, so it was like we were speaking different languages when we were trying to control my bloodsugar. Worst thing about this, though.....the VERY worst.....it was on my honeymoon. :bawling:

[Tokyo Cate]

I am absolutely peeing myself laughing at the thought of you waking up the next morning, looking at your stomach, and realising what had happened. What did you say to him when you saw him next?

We laughed about it over coffee and I was more careful with a) controlling my mid-night blood sugards and b) wearing pjs after that.

[xMenace]

If you don't were pj's, they might get there quicker and stay longer!?

--------------------------------------------------------------------

I think my worst was annual optho visit in early March 1994. "Be at the hospital tomorrow morning for laser. You'll have two sessions a week for at least four weeks."

I had about 300 income tax returns lined up to do, so I asked if I could wait a couple of months.

"Do you want to go blind?"

HG%#KM(&%(!!!

I did get all those taxes done!

[Gangrel]

hmmmm, i bet you could write a much longer sentence on my stomach.... uhhh, i mean, i have a six-pack!

[Lex4153]

When I got the phone call last spring that I was Type 2, not Type 1 as I had thought for nearly 10 years . . . I had so much anger and resentment that day. But it wore off pretty quick as I lost weight and got my numbers under control and better than ever.

I've never really had a really bad low experience. Once when on insulin I switched the long lasting and fasting acting doses and ended up taking 4x the reg amount of fast acting . . . noticed it right away though and proceeded to binge on anything I could find.

[Tricia452008]

I was at a friends bachelorette party and of course there are male "personal body part objects everywhere" In the middle of festivities i started crashing and i told someone i need to get sugar in me....i started to black out so my friends turned to the first thing they could find which unforunally was a choclate covered cake shaped like a particular male body part lol so they started feeding me that....::lucky for them i did not choke on it lol

but anyway they have a pic of me lying there with the cake to my face lol it was soo wrong but soo funny!!!

[aeromarv]

Well, after college, I had a hard time finding a job so my new wife and I moved into my parent's basement. A few hours after going to sleep, I woke my wife up shaking. She tried to wake me and couldn't. She also realised I was ice cold and drenched in sweat. She didn't know what to do so she went upstairs and woke up my parents. She told them "..he's shaking and I can't wake him up."

So my mother jumped up and called 911 while my father came down to the basement (he's a firefighter and an EMT and we had no glucogon in the house to help me!)

Needless to say I don't remember much of it until I finally came to with 2 paramedics and 4 firefighters crammed into my bedroom, along with my parents, wife, and brother, plus I had an IV in one arm and was sprawled over the bed in my boxers.

[lgvincent]

I'd have to say coming too after having rammed my truck into the back of a pickup truck while in insulin shock.

[Cinnabon]

Not waking up (Hypo):vollkomme My daughter saved my life!

[jeggeman31]

I had the police called on me once when I shot up while at lunch. As I was eating my meal, one of my very good friends (a police officer) came in and started laughing very hard. He walked over sat down, said he was called out to a drug dealer doing drugs, took my food and ate the rest of my lunch. As we sat, I could see a couple a few tables over just looking at us. I walked over, told them I was diabetic not a crack head and told them thanks for getting ahold of my friend, so we could have lunch and walked out.

[lgvincent]

Waking up with two paramedics working on me and finding my front teeth broken wasn't what I would call a great day. Lucky for me, I use my molars to chew tobacco. Otherwise, I WOULD be in a mess.

[belyro]

I had the police called on me once when I shot up while at lunch. As I was eating my meal, one of my very good friends (a police officer) came in and started laughing very hard. He walked over sat down, said he was called out to a drug dealer doing drugs, took my food and ate the rest of my lunch. As we sat, I could see a couple a few tables over just looking at us. I walked over, told them I was diabetic not a crack head and told them thanks for getting ahold of my friend, so we could have lunch and walked out.

I've often wondered if something like this would ever happen to me, because I often shoot up while at lunch.

I would have been SO MAD! Kudos to you for having a sense of humour about it!

[Lex4153]

Jeggeman, that's soooo funny! Yeah I've wondered if people thought I was doing drugs. Now I know, some people probably do.

[mg_2204]

Most awful experiences I had with diabetes all involved stupid people making stupid, nasty, cruel comments.

[am1977]

I've had a few unpleasant experiences... I'm not sure I could narrow it down to one, unfortunately.

Let's see the time when I was on a cruise... I had recently sent back a defective pump to MM (:eviltongu) for a refurbished one and thought I would be all set for my vacation and left my backup supplies at home. Why pack backup- I mean, this was a good pump- or so I thought :rolleyes:. Of course, if anything can go wrong, it will. The pump they sent me failed me... I got error messages and would not function properly (turns out it got stuck in rewind :argh: ). I was sick with high blood sugars all week and it basically ruined my vacation :bawling:.

Then there was the time I was driving home from the gym... I had majorly low blood sugars, but, don't think I completely realized it. I thought I would be perfectly fine to drive home, but realized as I was driving a weird feeling. I felt almost detached from myself and suddenly felt like I had lost control of my car. I got to my street and found myself driving WAY too fast... I ended up passing my apartment 3 times, completely confused and disoriented. The last time I did it I went way too far past it and became lost. If that wasn't bad enough, it was so dark that I couldn't see and my sugar was still falling :eek:. Luckily, I didn't injure anyone (TG) or myself, but I did end up hitting something on the side of the road. I blew a tire and ruined the frame of my car... but I came out of it- I know it could have been so much worse.

The last time wasn't that bad, but it just threw me off guard. It was not too long after I was diagnosed. I was dealing with high sugars and ended up calling my endo for help. The receptionist took msg and said that he woul get back to me. Well, my Endo must have had my old phone number written down some where & so when he tried calling me back, there was no response at that number. So he send the EMTs out to my place. Imagine my surprise to hear a knock at my door and standing there are the paramedics. It kind of threw me, so to speak. At that point, after dealing with the high blood sugars and the shock of being greeted that way, I lost it. Obviously, looking back I'm grateful that my Endo responded that way- who knows if I could have been passed out or something, but it was kind of scary at the time.

[palefacegirl03]

About a year after I was diagnosed, I dropped low during the night ( my ex husband tells me , since I dont remember this I wake up), so I wake up, laying at the end of the bed in just a tshirt with 6 firemen/paramedics standing around the bed. I remember right before I "woke up" I thought I was on a space ship and was telling them all about it.

I try and make sure I have something that covers me up at night now too.:embarasse

[jen_slc]

About a year after I was diagnosed, I dropped low during the night ( my ex husband tells me , since I dont remember this I wake up), so I wake up, laying at the end of the bed in just a tshirt with 6 firemen/paramedics standing around the bed. I remember right before I "woke up" I thought I was on a space ship and was telling them all about it.That's interesting, my worst experience, though not bad compared to the others here, is somewhat similar. A couple of years ago, I went through a phase of serious nighttime hypos without knowing it. One morning, the day after Xmas, the day that earthquake hit Bam in Iran, I think, my dad and sister couldn't "wake" me up - I was acting childish and really out of it. Though I wasn't unconscious, when I finally "came to" and my brain started functioning again, I was at sitting at the end of my bed, my pjs drenched in spilt sugar water and sweat, and I remember thinking that my dad and sister were aliens trying to poison me.

[poodlebone]

My worst was my first extreme hypo/seizure while at home alone. It was scary as **** because I couldn't control my body and couldn't help myself. Took me a couple of hours before I regained control of my body and I felt awful for the rest of the day.

Second place would be my first trip to the ER via ambulance. My mother was having some kind of eye surgery and wanted me to go with her. I had to get up really early to meet her and I was exhausted, Fell asleep in a chair in the waiting room. My mother said that as she came out of the room, she saw me and was about to come over but I sat up and started puking. She said there was a small garbage can next to my seat and I leaned over and threw up into it. I don't remember any of it but I guess my brain had noticed it earlier, and didn't want me to make a mess of the waiting room floor. The eye doctor got an IV into me and started giving me glucose before the ambulance arrived. I do remember screaming in the ambulance because they were pushing that awful stuff whose name I can't remember into my veins. Spent a few hours in the ER and finally got to leave. My poor mother had a patch over one eye and couldn't wear her glasses, and could barely see. I was very weak and my head was all fuzzy. We made a good pair.

[Eri's mom]

Hmmm...Eri's had a few...

Firstly, as for ppl wondering what I am doing w/ needles...I did have a cop pull my friend and I over while we were going somewhere w/ the kids and asked why I had needles...and Eri was like, uh, b/c I'm a diabetic...he was cool after that.
I walked into a party w/ Eri's one needle in my mouth(had her kit in the car) and it was a 60's themed party, and my hands were full w/ other things and ppl who didn't know Eri was diabetic were like, "cool, man, you're totally in the '60's theme"...UGH...lol

OK, Eri's worst would have to be when she had food poisoning and we almost lost her last year.

The other time, when she was first dx'd and went into her first hypo seizure and I wasn't there, I was up here, in Buffalo b/c my bil was having surgery on his liver(he was the one dx'd w/ liver cancer the same day Eri was dx'd w/ diabetes)...and my poor mom had to deal w/ that...freaked her out. Or when Or when she went down to 19mg/dL and she was completely out of it...took 4 paramedics to get her to come around.
Or, this last time she was in(not for the surgery)...and how the staff treated Eri and I. I won't go there b/c I could seriously vent right now...lol

[KickStart101]

Sorry, I've had 2 worst experiences with
Diabetes as I've mentioned before:

1. When I was 19, I ended up in a 3 day Coma(my stupidity). I was
Very tired, throwing up blood, extremely thirsty and felt Horrible. After
my 3 days of sleep and much treatment, I woke up and felt fine and
went back to work. :)
(Don't forget that if you didn't take your Insulin before work, then don't
eat meals and drink pops when you forget that you didn't take your Insulin :D).

2. In 1990, I was severely over-dosed in Hospital by an inexperienced
Nurse. I was 1.5 mmol/L, when she injected my days Insulin. I was so weak
that I only awoke for a few moments to see her inject my Insulin.
That didn't bother me since I was too low to realize I was Low anyways.
I just passed out again into Happy sleep. My Spirit eventually drifted away
from my body and upwards. (Other things happened). It didn't seem long but
it was hours later that I was shocked awake by the paddles. It felt like my
heart was pulled from my chest. I passed out again.

The next day, I awoke and soon realized I was missing some of my memories.
I also remembered the pain in my chest so I demanded a heart and memory
test. After the tests, they said there was no scar tissue on my heart which
meant I didn't have a heart attack. For my memory test they said I used to
be a Genius before but now I was only Normal. I was not amused. I knew
they were lying since I was missing these memories. Everyone was walking
on eggshells since they were afraid of being sued. ( Don't go into the Hospital
for R & R from RA).

[Catareta]

Well, my whole experience up until May this year has been traumatic... :-(
But I had a funny thing happen today, had insulin then ate lunch tuna s/w then went off to work.. had to walk 3/4 mile to pick a package up.. then got back.. shaking and screaming at the door cos I forgot the code... lol was very hypo... (shakes)

[lelggren]

I think that my worst experience as a diabetic was about a month after I moved to Utah. I didn't have insurance at the time, and so I was wearing infusion sets for sometimes a week and a half at a time just to make them last. Well, one of mine had started to come out, and it was my last set. Well, being the big stupid I was at the time, I just pushed the set back in! :stupido2: Well, I started within a couple of days to get some DKA symptoms, and it was the painful ones (shortness of breath, and terrible aches all over) so Michael made me go to Urgent Care. Well, the urgent care doc, by his own admittance, knew nothing about diabetes, so he saw to it that I had an appointment made for first thing in the morning and sent me home. Well, after we got out into the lobby of the urgent care, I threw up all over Michael.....He had never really seen how bad diabetes can get, and he learned real quickly from this experience. The next morning I was in the ER with DKA. And, of course, they gave me a med in my IV drip to knock me out. Well, I remember waking up for like 3 seconds very dazed and confused. Michael was sitting by my hospital bed holding my hand and just balling. I remember looking at him and saying "why are you crying? what's wrong?" and then zonking out again....

What made this the worst experience was that Michael (btw, he is my dear hubby :) ) had to learn the reality of diabetes in such a harsh manor. He had already read up on a lot of stuff, but seeing it is a whole other ball game. He has never had a problem with me having the disease, but this experience made him watch my health like a hawk. He even has a pamphlet of symptoms of high bg and low bg hanging on our wall....lol I am just so grateful every day that I have such a strong man in my life who loves me even though I puke on him....lol And what's funny too is that now, whenever I get sick, he turns my head away from him and says, "if you have to puke, do it waaaaayyyy over there....lol" :)

[valc3]

I had few friends over and I ended up having a hypo. I was taking care of it, eating 15gm and waiting 15 minutes, but I wasn't getting any higher. One of the guys is an EMT and he kept asking me what day of the week it was, by this time I was at 30 and it was taking every bit of energy to focus on fixing the low. I lost my patience and yelled at him to look at the F*&#ing calender if he needed to know, I was busy. My bg finally came up. It took a couple of days for me to realize he was trying to determine if/how orientated I was. Needless to say, I was embarrassed.

The other one that comes to mind could have been a disaster. I hadn't been dx'd too long. It was winter, and about 10 degrees. My car broke down on the way home. Since it was night, I knew there wouldn't be any cars coming along. ( I live in a very rural area and there isn't anyone out at night) So I started walking. I knew I could make it to home, it was about 5 miles, no big deal. I tested before I started out and I had glucose tabs and life savers. Shouldn't be a problem. I made it home, but I didn't realize how much glucose the body would use keeping warm at that temperature. I had eaten all the glucose tabs and lifesavers by the time I got home. I also learned it's really hard to get blood for a finger stick when your hands are cold.

[Stuboy]

I've often wondered if something like this would ever happen to me, because I often shoot up while at lunch.

I would have been SO MAD! Kudos to you for having a sense of humour about it!

I wonder if this will happen to me as well sometimes, i often shoot up in public places... i figure it's what i gotta do to survice and no one's gonna stop me!