Crisis in the Night

It's a feeling that's impossible to describe. It is so unique that it beggers explanations as to why it isn't recognized and dealt with immediately - it can only be one thing. It happened last night. I'd been in bed and asleep for about an hour. I woke up and knew that something was very wrong. I lay there, feeling a gnawing fear in my stomach, trembles in my knee - a catastrophe was in the offing. My skin was moist with sweat, my mind could not focus. I needed to do something. I needed to do it now. But I can't stand up. I'd fall over. In fact, I was lying down and inside I was falling down. A constant feeling of falling. A constant feeling of fear. I was not dying, I knew that. I was not living, I knew that too.

What to do ...

What to do ...

Joe shifted in bed behind where I lay. I remembered that I didn't live alone. It took only a second to place Joe in my life. He loves me. He HELPS me. I felt safer because he was there. I let myself doze.

I wake soaked in sweat. I can barely think. The fear has moved into my chest. I have to remember to breathe. Somethings wrong. Really wrong. I check the time, see the numbers but do not understand them. I try to get up, my legs are jelly. Sweat runs down my back.

Joe moves again and I ask him to go get my tester. It's very late. He's deeply asleep. He says 'sure' but doesn't get up. I wait. Maybe this will pass. No. It's getting worse. I call to him again. He gets up and stumbles into the front room, grabs the tester out of my wheelchair bag and brings it to me. I turn the light on and prick my finger and scoop the droplet of blood onto the strip. A few seconds later the monitor tells me that my blood sugar is dangerously low, the lowest I've ever tested.

Calling from the bathroom, Joe asks me the number. I tell him and he rushes to the kitchen to get me a glass of orange juice. It only takes a few seconds for sanity to return to my bones, for calmness to replace the fear in my stomach, for me to stop falling.

It's over. Until next time.