Diabetes Day 1

When my doctor called me at work, I knew that there really was something wrong with me. She told me to go to the closest emergency room, not to drive my car, and to have someone accompany me. Within 10 minutes, my friend from work and I were in a cab.

The ER admitting nurse asked me, "Did your doctor tell you your blood sugar level?" "Yes, 36 mmol/L," I said, the number meaningless to me at that point. "I'm surprised you're still standing," she said, as she poked me again to check my current blood sugar level.

"Ouch," I yelped.

"You're going have to get used to that," she replied pragmatically.

After awhile, my boyfriend Tim arrived and my friend left. "Well," I said to Tim, "this explains a lot." I had been having symptoms for months: fatigue and mood swings, which I had attributed to my stressful job; thirst and weight loss, which I attributed to the long, hot summer. It was only when I realized that I was losing my vision that I decided to go get checked out. "I can't believe how much juice you drank!" said Tim.

We sat and we waited. And we waited. After almost five hours, I was finally admitted to a bed. Around me I saw chaos – big city ER chaos. I realized, at that moment how real my condition was. I looked around; the place was full of sick or injured people. What am I doing here? How serious is it? How sick am I? Panic rose in my throat. What was being diabetic going to mean? I had no idea. I was afraid. I closed the curtain around my bed and I cried.

"There are worst things that could happen … there are worst things that could happen …" was the mantra I kept repeating to my boyfriend, who somehow knew the right thing to say was nothing at all.

The swish of the curtain startled me. In bounced a young nurse, dressed in scrubs the color of grape Kool-Aid. "Mmm, Kool-Aid, I sure could go for a glass," I thought, still very thirsty. I learned that she, too, was diabetic, so was her sister. She told me of her sister's dramatic discovery of her diabetes – she had passed out at work. That could easily have been me – or worse – I thought, while trying very hard not to think about it. So I thought about Kool-Aid instead.

By the setting of the sun, and the changing of the shift, I had learned that I had just become a reluctant member of a very large club. Every nurse I met had a story of someone they knew with diabetes, and bless their hearts, the stories had happy endings.

My initiation into this new club was spending the night in the emergency room! By the middle of the night, when the hijinks in the ER had settled down thanks to the presence of a very large police officer standing guard over a particularly testy patient, I actually fell asleep.

I felt a hand on my shoulder, warm breath on my cheek, someone was whispering in my ear. I awoke with a start, not knowing where I was. Reality hit me like a slap in the face. Oh yeah, I'm diabetic now. The nurse, who gently woke me was a real night prowler, I could tell, by the smell of coffee and cigarettes on his breath, and half a dozen studs in his ear.

He apologetically asked for a finger to check my blood sugar. I said sure, how about this one, as I slowly raised my middle finger. I hadn't lost my sense of humor. Oh, how I wanted to go home. I retreated back into sleep, as a reprieve from my new reality.

For some diabetes numbers, see our trivia on the Diabetes Atlas.

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