How The Grinch Stole Vacation Time

Happy Tuesday!

Last week I set out on a bus trip to Toronto, Canada. Trying to be prepared for anything that could possibly happened, I packed not only extra cartridges, infusion sets, batteries and extra testing supplies (2glucose meters) but I also packed tons of insulin pens.
I definitely felt ready for the journey to and from Canada.
My vacation had some good points, some bad, cheeky and intriguing blasts from the past and did I mention some diabetic mishaps.

The first occurred during dinner one night. The 8 of us sat down at a Korean grill house.
By the way anyone who hasn’t tried doing this should. It is quite fun. You are given raw meats to cook on your own at your table. It is an all you can meat and rice meal. I also ordered a strawberry coconut milk shake, like I said was on vacation

Pre-meal test was at 240. I bolused for 1 cup of rice. And about 40minutes later, I felt extremely dizzy and hot. I excused myself from the table, walked to the bathroom and walked back out. That is all I remember till I was up again drinking orange juice and quite frankly that memory was a bit fuzzy.

I didn’t have my usual symptoms warning me of a hypo. Yes I was dizzy, but usually I have other things going on that make me aware that I am having a hypo.
When I passed out, someone who knows my diabetes well tested me at 86. About 30 seconds later I was 60. Not even a minute after that I was 48.
Although I have been lower than 48 and still on my two feet, I don’t think I have ever dropped so quickly like that. I had tons of juice and I was creeping back up very slowly.  It was a very strange experience because my awareness for hypos is quite good.
Thankfully I hit 72 after about an hour after all that juice.  What the hell happened? Why was I not going back up very fast? Even after all that juice and extra rice should I have not gone up much higher at that point? Who knows…
I felt somewhat embarrassed. Friends were worried about me and I am thankful for having them there with me.
A friend of mine gave me two grape juices so that when I returned on the bus, I wouldn’t have to worry if I had another hypo. I did have glucose tablets to feed an army of diabetics, but juice just works faster for me.

Upon returning home, I spoke with my doctor and some other diabetics. I was told that me passing out was not uncommon because of the speed which I was dropping. The fact I had all those carbs of juice and I only reached 120 two hrs later, meant something was happening and happening fast. I didn’t have to bolus the entire night. It was like I had all this insulin just lurking around waiting to attack any piece of sugar I consumed.

Next incident occurred Saturday night into Sunday morning. The Grinch (my pump) only delivered 10units of my needed basal of 25. No alarms went off. The only thing that made me notice was a blood sugar of 449 followed by the pump alerting me that there was an occlusion.
So I didn’t freak out much. I figured ok, time to change the infusion set.  Rewind, primed, filled cannula and I was told pump couldn’t deliver insulin.

I had large ketones.  So I took some levemir and I bolused via novolog pen. I pretty much bolused all the way home.
I finally made it back to NYC where I was further hydrated and Grinch started to behave again. I am also happy to say my ketones dropped from large to small by mid-afternoon yesterday.

On a side note, during my vacation I found one of these in the ladies room
Quite cool. Wish they had these all over NYC and all public places. Of course they would have to make it secured as possible for the container not to be broken into…