This weekend was decidedly odd.
The girls were away doing exciting outward bound things and Jane and I had planned a nice weekend's worth of activity - a trip to the cinema, a meal out, that sort of thing. It was going to be great.
On Saturday I ended up in hospital.
It wasn't anything hugely dramatic in the end, but it was pretty scary at the time. I'm no beginner to this Diabetes lark, and I seem to pretty much know what's coming my way most of the time. I'm lucky in that I guess. I'd woken up with slightly low blood sugar on Saturday morning. This sort of blip is usually quickly sorted out with some fast acting carbohydrate (yes I know it's supposed to be Lucozade or glucose tablets but give me a fun-size chocolate bar any time). 10-20g of sugars, leave it a few minutes and all is usually well. But here was the thing... my sugar levels came up fine, but I lost the power of speech. I could write words down - though my thoughts were not particularly clear - but forming a spoken sentence was all but impossible. I have noticed some hypoglycaemic episodes having an effect on the speech centres on the brain. In fact, ask Jane or the girls and they'll tell you just how much nonsense I'll spout at the time, but this was different. For hours afterwards my sugar levels were well up (around 10-15mmol/l) and my brain was still on the fritz. A little after lunch we headed to the hospital. At that stage we had no idea whether this connected with the hypo, or something else entirely.
Thankfully the staff at the hospital in Bristol were excellent. Listened carefully and checked me over to make sure I was fine to go home. But the experience has left us with a desire to note things down, ask questions, consider, and look at the condition that is part of my and my families life.
It's only just striking me as I write this first post that this year I turn 41. I was diagnosed at 21 during the final year of my degree course. From this point on I will have had type 1 Diabetes for longer than I was without it. This is a good time, I think, to have a good long look at things.
