buzzybee @ stock.xchng
"I totaled my truck”
I looked at my friend in shock. He did not look hurt or anything but his lower lip quivered enough to tell me it was bad.
“Oh man, what happened?” I should tell you that this is a friend of mine from church who has diabetes. He recently started taking insulin and was in the hospital last week with DKA. He had been doing fine.
He went on to tell me that he has been checking his blood every 2 hours ever since he got out of the hospital by his doctors request. He is really trying to get his blood sugars and insulin intake under control. He checked his BG and it was 140 in the afternoon. He was okay according to his instructions.
He dropped his wife off at work and began to drive home. He remembers making a right hand turn near a Marie Calendars and then waking up in an ambulance. An ambulance 11 miles away from that restaurant!
The paramedic said he was combative when they pulled him from the truck and that his foot was on the gas pedal. He did not hit anyone thank God but he did smash into a wall.
They gave him a shot of Glucagon when they saw his glucose monitor sitting on his passenger seat. When he came to they did a finger stick and his BG was 42.
“I am just glad I am okay and I did not hit or hurt anyone.” His eyes began to well up. I think being able to talk to someone with diabetes made him feel better.
“I am so sorry you had to go through that.” I felt bad because I could see how guilty he felt. I know that when our diabetes gets the best of us we sometimes feel completely to blame.
“I just hope I will never have to go through that again,” he said.
“I hope no one ever has to.”
Diabetic Recipes
Even without D, car accidents are scary things. We've had two in the past eight months -- neither of them D-related -- and I'm still a bit spooked any time someone drives at anything closer than the "safe driving distance" we learned in high school (and which nobody here seems to follow)...
Thank the L-rd that the first-responders to your friend's incident were paramedics who had glucagon available and who had been trained in its use... and that they arrived in time.
One of my son's friends has Type 1 and he just got his license a few weeks ago. He doesn't really take care of his D like he should so I worry about him more than most that he'll have a low while driving and have an accident. (He and Holden have been friends for a couple of years. He's eaten with us numerous times. They are on the basketball team together. And, Holden has only seen him check his sugar once in all that time.) I've never seen him check his sugar.
Anyway, I'm glad your friend is OK and that he didn't hurt anyone.
Highs can be almost as bad as lows while driving. I had a nice meal at my favorite chinese restaurant one night and got too much of I don't know what but I was freaking out by the halfway point home. Sleepy, unresponsive to my wife's urging to pull over, and speeding. She finally got me to pull over and took the wheel the rest of the way home. Scary stuff having D and driving sometimes. Keep safe y'all, monitor regularly.