I had quite a scare last weekend. Shawn surprised me for the shower that we had on April 5th. I was under the assumption that he wouldn’t be in town until late on April 4th, but he arrived around five o’ clock with a bouquet of tulips to surprise me. I was so excited to see him! He always surprises me. I feel like I am a much happier person when he’s around. He just has this way of calming me down and making me feel like everything is ok. Friday night we went out for a few drinks, just the two of us. Saturday morning I woke up and felt fine. About an hour after I woke up, though, I started feeling disoriented and I lay down on the couch. Shawn woke up and noticed my distraction, but didn’t realize what was going on until about 15 minutes later. I was having an insulin reaction. My blood sugar had dropped so low that I no longer could remember things, make conversation or act normally. My heart beat very fast. Shawn advised me to lay down and eat some peanut butter crackers, but I still felt like I couldn’t make sense of anything. Everything felt like a dream; like I was swimming in a dream-like ocean. I knew what was happening in a given moment, but a second later, I forgot it. Later, my blood sugar was still dangerously low, so Shawn drove me to get a coke. After ingesting some sugar, I began to think normally, and I started to cry. I couldn’t remember the last hour or anything that had happened to me. It scared me that I could be caught that off guard. I was frustrated because I am usually able to detect a low- I’ve had diabetes for three years. For some reason, though, that morning I couldn’t. The combination of the early dinner the night before, the alcohol and the increased dosage of insulin I was taken must have taken its toll on my body. I was just glad Shawn was there and knew what to do. Not many people know about the extremes of the disease, especially for Type 1. When I was diagnosed, Shawn took it upon himself to research and educated himself all about the disease. He now knows more about it than some of my family members. He says he researched it because it was a part of me, and he loved every part of me. He realized that if he didn’t know all about it and how to take care of me, he wouldn’t be loving me the best he could, so he did. I am so thankful that he was able to act quickly. When we finally tested my blood glucose after he realized what was happening, it was 34. Normal blood glucose is supposed to be between 70-110. I hadn’t had that bad of a low since I was in the hospital three years ago. I can’t imagine what would have happened if Shawn hadn’t been there.
As I reflect on the situation this weekend, I am overcome with how fragile life is. My life could have been wiped out in an instant. I often think I am so invincible, but I am not. I realize I need to embrace life for what it is and life it as an adventure; not a list that I cross off every now and then. I want to have conversations with people that I have a spiritual connection with, that embrace me and take my hand and tell me that they believe in me. I want to believe that love at first sight truly does exist a lifetime. I want to be sure that I can accomplish my dream and that I can be satisfied as a middle class female adult and not be pressured into a mold that I am not. I want to believe in the extraordinary, the mystical, the phenomenons that not many people believe in. I want to be open minded and encourage people on the spot. I want to reach for a goal and know that I am capable enough to accomplish it.
I want to be so much! I often feel that the institution of marriage is confining and can shorten a person’s life. But I don’t want to be that person.
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