WHEN NOT TO CHEW ICE CUBES

Did a grown-up in your life ever tell you it’s rude to chew on your ice cubes and then further threaten and scare you by telling you, your teeth will crack or worse break? That hasn’t stopped me back when I was a child … at the same time, I will tell you even at 50 plus, I still chew on those ice cubes.

I am pretty sure I shared my biggest fear in a previous post, you know the one, where I am found passed out because my blood glucose levels dropped suddenly. I didn’t have time to act upon it and now the responsibility falls into someone else to react to it.

Last Thursday as I prepared for my workout with my personal trainer, I checked my glucose levels to be in my “safe zone” for working out (at least at 120) and normally don’t eat or drink anything before as it makes me nauseous during my workout. I didn’t feel off or anything out of the ordinary, other than being slightly tired so I drove to the Y to meet my personal trainer for my 5:30am session. After our usual morning banter and small talk, we began my workout session. All depending how I awoke or my morning started off, it becomes my hour dose of torture, or abuse, or medicine or motivation.

About halfway through my session, I told my personal trainer everything feels strangely heavier than usual and my workout seems to be more of a chore than feeling good after each routine. I was completing my last rep, of the last set, of my last routine for the morning when I suddenly felt as if I was going to pass out. The last thing I remember telling my personal trainer in a weakened voice was to go to my car and find my glucose tablets and mumbled with specific directions where in my middle console to find it. I normally only carry them on me if my blood glucose levels drop below my “safe zone” and when I workout either intensely and/or alone

By the time my personal trainer returned with my glucose tablets, I began to feel weaker and very lightheaded and that I was ready just face my dreaded fear, head on. I managed to muster enough strength to get up and sit bowed over on a weight machine and vaguely remember her giving me almost my entire sleeve of glucose tablets before I started to feel slightly better.

I sat there for what seemed like hours but was only maybe a half hour before I was able to make a planned wake-up call for my Mom and recover enough so I could safely drive home. I managed to call my Mom, she immediately knew something was going on with me … like all overprotective mothers, they know when something is not right … so I told her I was fine and not to worry about me. Despite being honest with her about what happened and assuring her I was OK, she was prepared to cancel her own appointment and drive me to her house to keep an eye on me. For her to not worry about me was like asking her to forget about me even telling her about the episode. After her appointment, she checked-in on me throughout the day. When I finally felt well enough to leave, I drove myself home where I took a long hot shower and ate some breakfast and proceeded on with my day, just as if nothing out of the extraordinary happened that morning.

Even with proper planning and when all seems to be going well, it doesn’t take much for the bottom to fall out when it’s least expected. I’ve always said the most frustrating thing about being a person with diabetes is not always the constant blood glucose checks, monitoring your food intake and taking insulin or other medication but the unpredictability diabetes plays in my own life’s journey. I have always thought of myself as always prepared for the worst possible scenario, yet this episode proved me wrong. Even with the best preparation you can still, literally, crash – pun intended.

As I sit back in my recliner, sipping on my favorite beverage and chewing on my ice cubes and begin writing my next post, the very one you are reading now, I am compelled to remind you to allow your ICE (In Case of Emergency) to get to know you and your medical condition. They should know who else to contact, what to do to help you, when and where to take you for medical attention if necessary. Much like how ice should stay in your favorite beverage as to allow yourself time to sip the drink so you get to know and enjoy the full flavors and not just taste the ice cubes, your ICE needs to get to know you on that same level. They should know when the flavor was not quite as robust as usual as they should know you when you are not your normal self.

It’s not if, but when, you will face a situation where the words coming out of your mouth will not make a whole lot of sense, just as if you were chewing on a mouth full of ice. You can only hope the ICE around you is not so preoccupied chewing on their ice that they will not realize their favorite drink has lost its robust flavor and is now diluted but take notice to be the one to order another round on your behalf, when you no longer can.