Being the wife can be challenging

4 AM Sunday morning his blood sugar drops down into the 30's. He's lying in bed flapping the covers...because they are soaked with sweat...and he's giggling maniacally. Keeps saying he's drowning...but he's laughing about it. We keep emergency supplies on the headboard, so I gave him a glucose tablet which he bit a tiny piece off and spit it out at me, still giggling. Now he wants to play "Aw, c'mere so I can push you away violently" I leave him for a few minutes to fetch his monitor, some juice and a glucagon. He's still giggling and pushing me away when I return, which makes taking the blood test very challenging. He continues to push me away every time following it with "Aw, c'mere" and that repulsive giggle. I tried to give his juice, it made him cough, so now he's back to drowning. My only choice is to shoot him with the glucogon or call an ambulance. I prepare the glucogon, get pushed away, inject the needle, get shoved away, inject the needle again, get shoved away, get up off the floor, throw myself on top of him, slap his hands away and finally give him the injection. Now I leave him alone and prepare a bed for me on the floor. About 10 minutes later he "comes to" and I offer him some juice. Naturally he has no clue why I'm on the floor or why I'm sobbing or holding ice on my face.

It's not very often that he gets violent like that, but it's rather devastating when it does happen. These lows happen so often that I'm seriously sick of it and often find myself debating whether I really should get up and help him or just let him slip into a coma and be done with it all. Terrible, I know. I highly doubt I'd ever have the guts to act on that thought, but I certainly entertain it frequently enough. I'm so tired of playin this stupid game. I hate the disease. Worst of all I resent him. I feel that I am being forced to accept that this is the way it is. No matter what, I'll never change it. I'll never prevent it. I'll never stop it. I just have to sit there and let him slap me around because he has no idea he's doing it and doesn't remember when it's over. It's the disease...not him.

We're gonna be OK...we always are. It was just a bad day. I never did tell him all the details of what he did. I don't see the point. He can't fix it any more than I can. I spent the whole day in tears on the couch and he did all the laundry. He owed me that much.

I have called the ambulance for my husband and would do so again in heart beat. If the first attempt at juice/glucose goes wrong, make the call.

Having said that, my husband doesn’t understand why I resorted to 911. But I see no need to put us all at further risk.

I hope you are doing better!

Regi~
Thanks for your reply to my posting the other day. I have called for the ambulance so many times, I’ve lost count. My husband doesn’t get violent, thank God, because he could do some serious damage. When he gets too low for me to bring him up myself, I have to resort to calling the medics. He gets violently ill with glucagon, so I don’t use that anymore - but I do always have it on hand. We are volunteer firefighters and we know the medics well - and they have come and bailed me (him) out many times. Not as often since he’s been on an insulin pump.
We had a really bad one last week. I woke up to him vomiting, unconsciously, at midnight. He was unable to even pick his head off the pillow (thank God he was lying on his side). He was having a reaction and a stomach virus at the same time. It was the scariest thing I’ve gone through with him. I called the medics and the volunteer fire company that we belong to - it turned out OK but…

I have much sympathy for you… I have debated the same things as you and hate myself for it. We’ve been to counseling - I thought it was going to work, but the counselor changed jobs. We are in a tough spot. We keep on going… I guess we have to.

Let’s keep in touch