My fellow blogger Nicole Purcell, wrote an amazing entry the other day called, How Do Our Bodies Do It? She captivates very brilliantly what it is like to experience a severe late night episode of hypoglycemia. Some of us, fortunately, have never had an experience quite like the one she describes. Others are all too familiar with them. Speaking for myself, I am one of the fortunate ones, who has only been dangerously low a handful of times. I have never been injected with a glucagon shot and I've never really lost consciousness due to a low. But still, I could definitely relate to her experience because I can recall the episodes where I was just so unbelievably out of it. But her post got me thinking of the time when I was a camp counselor at a children's diabetic camp.

All the campers and staff had just finished playing softball on that scorching summer day. My friend and I, another counselor and the camp nurse, were walking back to camp with a young kid with type 1. He was known for kind of being the tough kid at camp and he had a history of rebellious encounters with staff while low. Well, this time was no different. As we started up the long hill he got uncharacteristically quiet. When we realized he was low it was too late. We started by asking him politely to eat some sugar. Then, we began telling him too, because at this point he was refusing. Eventually, and right as he began to seizure, we put some gel on our fingers and forced them into his mouth. Fortunately for everybody, he began to come around and the whole situation was a good learning experience for everyone.

After he recuperated fully he apologized for his behavior while refusing the sugar. We wouldn't accept his apologies though because we wanted him to know that it was ok what had happened and that there was no need to feel sorry. He and I bonded for the rest of the camp and I'll never forget that experience. It was my first real experience with seeing a person with diabetes have a bad reaction.

Thank you. -Andy.