Help! I've fallen over and I can't get up!

I have this weird territorial-ness about my diabetes. I've always seen it as *my* disease, since I'm the one who has to manage it, and who has to deal with the hypos, and the highs, and the decisions, and the consequences etc, etc... I'm always looking to expand my knowledge about diabetes and ways of living with it and I love chatting to other people and swap tips and advice and I get on great with my diabetes team, and I *love* being part of the DOC.

But there's a big part of me that hates asking for help. I'm not sure why, because one thing I think we're all aware of is that diabetes is not an easy thing to live with, and sometimes we all need a little help. I think it's something I grew up with - that attitude of just getting on with it, and in a lot of ways I think it's helped, because I refuse to let this disease get me down or prevent me from doing the things I want to do. However, I think I've also inherited this sense of not wanting to ask for help along with it. The whole idea of being able to manage on your own seems to have developed in my head into meaning that if you need to ask for help then somehow you've done something wrong or failed in some way and it's your fault. And I *know* that's wrong, and one one of the biggest challenges I've had to face in with diabetes is overcoming that attitude.

Because the thing about diabetes is that sometimes it forces you to ask for help. Like on Friday when I was in the supermarket (Tesco's this time...) and my BG dropped through the floor with very little warning (stupid steroids). I shoved 20g of jelly beans down my throat, and then realised it wasn't doing anything. I decided I needed I needed juice, got confused, and about the time my vision started going and I was having zone outs, realised the I needed to ask for help. Luckily I was with my fiancé, and as soon as I found him and said "my blood sugar is really low I need juice" he very calmly but firmly took control on the situation. He led me over to the juice, got some, paid for it and then made me drink it while he scanned the rest of the shopping and kept an eye on me. He was awesome, especially considering that was the first time he'd had to deal with me like that.

I felt...odd...for most of the night, and it took me a while to realise that the oddness was that I didn't feel embarrassed. I needed help, and I asked for it, and I didn't feel that Stuart thought any less of me for it or judged me. And you know what? That felt pretty damn good.

Well, that was new

So. I had a bit of a scare of Wednesday night, in which my blood sugar dropped so low I passed out and had a seizure in the middle of Sainsburys. I'm still not entirely sure what caused it. I'd been running high all day, and correcting on the advice of my pump, and then I'd gone shopping. I was 11 mmol/l when I left work at around 6:30, and I called Stuart at about 7:30 to say that I was nipping into Sainsburys before heading home. Fifteen minutes later and I knew something was wrong, so I checked my BG and got 2.9. I had four glucotabs and waited for them to kick in. Soon after that I realised things were getting worse instead of better, and my vision was starting to do weird things. I had eight more glucotabs, and I could feel myself getting woozy. The last thing I remember thinking is that I needed to get help, and then the next thing I know I'm being woken up by a paramedic, who told me that I'd passed out and I'd had a seizure.

They didn't give me glucagon, because when they checked my BG it was 5.6. They packed me off to A&E, where I spent the rest of the evening getting poked and prodded and tested before they let me go home. Two of my liver enzymes are elevated, but that's unrelated to what happened, just something they want me to follow up with my GP. Poor Stuart had no idea what had happened until I managed to get in touch with him at about 10:30, when he then had to come all the way out to Addenbrooke's to look after me. He also took yesterday off work (as did I) to make sure I was ok.

I spent yesterday going to see my GP and just generally feeling completely wiped out. My BG kept dropping, so I was deliberately running it high, and oh god, my muscles are still in pain! I also bit my tongue quite badly, so I'm now talking with a kind of lisp and it's bugging me when I try to eat. I'm adamant it's not going to stop me going to Brighton tomorrow to meet up with my fellow diabetics!

I'm still not sure exactly what happened. In 22 years of diabetes, I have passed out once, and that was when I was eight and being stupid, and I've never had a seizure. I think it was an unfortunate combination of the heat, the exercise, and something weird going on with my insulin absorption, so maybe some of it was pooling and then all kicked in at once. Otherwise where the hell did all those glucotabs go??

I don't know where my towel is...

I seem to be having a day of over-reacting to things. I woke up to a lovely blood glucose reading of 16.7, which appeared out of nowhere. I was due a set change, and looking over my logs it occurred to me that I've woken up high on the third day of the last three sets. I'm normally ok changing every 3-4 days, so this is unusual for me, but maybe it's due to the heat or hayfever or something.

Anyway, I make a note of it, and change out the set. Now, the last couple of highs I've had like this have been stubborn, and it's taken extra corrections and an increased temp basal to bring them down, so I decide to be a bit aggressive and increase my correction by about 20%, and put on a temp basal of 140% for two hours, similar to what I'd ended up needing before.

Only, two hours later we're about to go for coffee, and I check my BG and discover I'm at 4. That's a drop of 12.7 in two hours, and I still have insulin kicking around... I grab a handful of skittles, bung some sugar in my tea and have a couple of slices of toast, since I missed breakfast, and underbolus for it all, ignoring the little voice in my head that's telling me that I'm usually quite sensitive to carbs for a while after a high like earlier.

Two hours after that and I'm sitting at 11.5. Damn that little voice, I should have listened to it. I correct, have lunch and bolus as usual, and three hours later I'm 12.9. Dammit.

If I hadn't overreacted to the morning high, I probably wouldn't have got the midmorning lowish number, and then I wouldn't have panicked and overfed it. I *know * that I tend to be insulin resistant for a while after waking up high, so the sensible part of me knew that I should have bolused for what I'd eaten at break. It's so hard to fight that panic when you think you're heading for a low, though.

Ah diabetes, it's never simple, is it?