Scariest Diabetes Moment

I read a tweet someone (@diabtribe) made on Twitter, saying::
“Scariest #diab moment?: meeting my blind grand aunt. Blindness related to her diabetes.”

What has been the scariest diabetes moment?

Mine was the day I was told I had to take insulin after being on oral drugs before. I had LADA, not type 2. It can be tough to accept you have to start taking shots, when you are an adult used to how life is supposed to be… and that doesn’t include syringes. :\

Mine was when my Dr. was telling me all the whats that could happen if I did not take care of myself,then took me down to see the Dialysis treatment. His version of scared straight, it worked I was scared. I was a teen then and it really made a impression on me.

It was when I lost my eyesight - temporarily. One day I could see normally, and the next I couldn’t and almost couldn’t drive. I’m not talking about blurry vision. I couldn’t see anymore. I was diagnosed a couple of weeks after that and it took another 2 weeks for my retinas dry out and return to normal. Fear of blindness is only half the motivation to manage the D. Every time I see someone at the grocery store creeping around in a motorized cart, I think that could be me.

Just last week when I had a low blood sugar. I got shakier than usual, my heart was shaking and hurting. I was nauseaus and I tried to stand up to go get some soda to drink I couldn’t. It felt like someone had kicked me in the groin. I tried again and the same thing. My mom slowly got me some soda, my niece got me my D bag and got me the sugar tablets out, I was literally grabbing at stuff on the table trying to eat it. This low lasted with shakiness, heart and groin pain for about 45 minutes, before I could eat. I was downing RC, Coca-Cola, the sugar tablets from CVS. I thought I was going to die.

Its a tie. After a steriod injection not being able to get my bg down from the 400 range for more than a few minutes it seemed. No control and I seriously thought of checking myself in to the hospital for help.
Waking up after a seizure with 4 emt’s in my room saying it took all four of them to hold me down to inject the glucagon. That is a fear I wish I could describe. A lot of you know what I am talking about.
Waking up in an ambulance after a low and being told I had driven myself and daughters into the woods to a logging sight. A diabetic parents’ worst nightmare, they said they didn’t know anything was wrong until we got to this parking lot and I just sat there. Luckily there was a man working there who called 911. My eldest learned how to use my cell that day she was 7.

Take your pick. I now check bg before driving if at all possible. Check twice before bed to get an idea of level and direction. And will avoid steroids no matter the pain. Life’s little lessons.

it was waking up one morning (regaining consciousness) to my wife (now ex) feeding M&Ms one at a time. It was when I was starting to try and take aggressive control of my D on MDI and 2 or 3 tests a day… yea, that equals a fail esp when 2 kids are involved.

Other than that it was more of a general memory of being a kid in the 70’s learning that I had a disease, it would be with me forever, and would kill me in 20 years… 40 years laters, I think a lot of those doctors may have already died…

Being told that I had a fully detached retina and woud need emergency surgery that afternoon. Then being told that the recovery would involve me laying face down, not moving, for 7 days. Then being told that it woud take 4 months before they’d know how much vision I’d regain.

Fast forward 7 years…I can see just fine.

Kathy,
Wow, did they hospitalize you for the 7 days? Was the detached retina a complication of diabetes?

Mine was the time I was first diagnosed with Diabetes. The emrgency room doctor scared the crap out of me. He was talking about possibilities of going blind, losing limbs and slow painful death. At that time I was ignorant and was too scared to eat anything. Until I tried to get myself informed by researching, reading books, joining support groups and surfing the net. And yes…I changed my doctor the soonest time I was able to.

The scariest moment was when I went into the ER and after doing tests and everthing, they told me what was going on. They had said that if I waited any longer, I would have gone into a diabetic coma. That for me was scary. I’m just so grateful I got inthere in time so they could treat me.

My scariest moment was being told that I would need an injection directly in my right eye to stop the bleeding. God was good! The opthamologist gave me the injection just a little while later preceeded by pain-deadening drops. It wasn’t as bad as I imagined.

Realizing I had uncontrolled diabetes and no insurance.

The only diabetics I knew up until then were the horror story diabetics. A friends husband and my uncle. They never took it seriously and both died a miserable death.

Tudiabetes was my first medical stop and I was told to not wait for the insurance. Joe, sohair, Cody Turner, Melissa Padilla, jen, kathy and Rachel started me on my way to better control and I believe kept my out of DKA because that was were I was heading with blood sugars of 500+ for months. Thank you…

3 days into my dream vacation in Jamaica when I could no longer fit my flip flops on my super swollen feet and I thought “this is it, diabetes is going to kill me while I am in a foreign land”. I was afraid to fly home because of the swelling but I had to get home and go to the doctor. Fast forward a a week when a cardiologist said “I bet it’s either your heart or your kidneys that are messed up. Since your your A1C is awful, I guess diabetes is catching up with you.” I never cried so hard in my life! Turns out my heart and kidneys were fine but this scared me straight and turned me into a born again diabetic for sure.

Mine was the day I ‘came around’ in the basement of the police station in Houston. I had been dragged off of my bus going to work because I was acting crazy! The officers took me to a doctor in the station instead of to a cell becuse they said I was really nutty but they did not think I was intoxicated and it was obvious that I was on my way to work downtown. The bus I rode was a Park & Ride from the ‘burbs’. They found my emergency information in my wallet. The doctor gave me some glucose and then those kind officers drove me to my work. Since then I have worn emergency identification on my person too!!

I have had several. My sister and son are Type 1. My sister was diagnosed at age 17 (6 years) ago and we have had to stay with her in the hospital due to DKA comas several times (she was using iv drugs at the time). Fast forward 6 years to when my son (3 1/2) was diagnosed in an out of state hospital 3 days before my other son’s (10 months old) cancerous tumor (Neuroblastoma) ressection in NYC.

I took my older son to a pediatrician in NYC (picked one from the ins. book) for a cold and had them do a urine test. He had been very thirsty and using bathroom alot and knew symptoms from sisters diagnosis. Sure enough, he was over 500 and we took a cab to a hospital across the street from MSKCC (Cancer Hospital).

He wasn’t allowed food for a full day. Good luck trying to not let a 3 year old eat! My worst nightmare. 2 toddlers with chronic life-threatening conditions.

6 months later - Jackson is cancer free! Austin (D) is on OmniPod and MM Guardian and BG is under control!

www.caringbridge.org/visit/jacksonboyd

Ahh thats great news. Hope everything keeps going this way!

I’m so glad to hear your sons are doing better! They must be fighters! =]

Two scary moments for me and a lesson:

Incident No. One: Watching my father start slipping into a diabetic coma. My mother and his ‘caregivers’ all thought he was dying and called me, rather than an ambulance, at 1:30 a.m. to rush over there. He was in terrible shape, awful, pathetic sight, shaking and cold, and speaking in this low gurgling voice, unintelligible. Then realized I could actually make out his words—he was still conscious and not speaking gibberish. We called 911 and the first of about 15 first responders began to arrive almost immediately. They immediately tested his BS, when we told them he was a Type 2 diabetic. His reading was somewhere in the low 50’s I believe. They gave him an insulin injection and juice and put an oxygen mask on him. After 5 or 10 terrifying minutes, after he’d regained his speech and alertness, after which they took the mask off him, he looked around at the assorted sheriffs, firemen, EMTs, etc.and us, and said “You scared the hell out of me!” One of the firemen said, “Well, you scared the hell out of us!”

That scary moment that ended with a laugh, but also ended with Dad in the V.A. hospital for almost 11 months and now permanently in an assisted living home. It was a wake-up call for me, also Type 2, in more than one way. I never want that to happen to me, I vowed.

Incident No. Two: Having said all that, a few months ago I had an incident, after a big, carbo-loaded holiday meal, where I had to pull of the highway into a rest area because I got so tired from high BS. I fell asleep after parking the car and when I awoke, the car wouldn’t start. I’d pulled into a spot and put the car in Park, setting the parking brake, and then promptly passed out before turning off the ignition and headlights. The battery of course was now dead. What if I hadn’t pulled off the road and fell asleep while still on the freeway doing 65 mph? Or worse, what if I too slipped into a diabetic coma in the rest area with no one realizing I wasn’t just napping?

About 6 months ago, our local police beat up a guy who turned out not to be a drunk or a doper driving a car and resisting arrest, but a diabetic going low, and acting stoned and groggy, and trying to explain to the cops what was happening the way my dad was trying to tell me to get help.

I now wear an ID medallion, backed up with medical info in my wallet. A really really good idea, as not everyone is trained to spot a diabetic episode.

my scariest diabetes moment was a few months ago, i had gone severely lowafter i had eaten something and tested my blood to see a BG of 50, ithen fell asleep thinking i was just tired. woke up to a BG of 70 then went to eat something else and fell asleep on the couch and woke up to find my BG was 35. i was so scared to go low again so i grabbed as much food as i thought i needed and started to stuff my face.