So, I had quite the adventure yesterday. I got up at 10 in the morning, checked my blood sugar, and took my pills. Then I sat down to my computer and played Insaniquarium (I beat the adventure!) while I waited the requisite thirty minutes. Once that time elapsed, I decided to go ahead and have breakfast. I got everything around and ate, then spent the rest of the morning puttering around online. It gave me a chance to get caught up on friends’ diaries and respond to a few emails and posts on message boards.

As it got to be about 12:30, I decided it was time to think about lunch. I decided that I wanted to go out for lunch, as I was having a restless day and just needed to do something to get my mind and body in a calmer state. So I took my shower and grabbed an apple out of the bag. I ate it as I drove to the mall.

I got to the mall at about 2:00. I knew I had to take my walk (it was my last chance to get the third day of exercise in for last week), so I decided to get that out of the way before I ran upstairs to eat. I wasn’t all that hungry since I had the apple, and I was feeling great. So I took my usual circuitous route through the halls of the mall and through a few of the anchor stores. Towards the end, I was getting hungry, but I finished my twenty minutes before getting my back out of the locker at the entrance and heading up to the food court. Once inside Friendly’s, I gave my waitress (Diane) my order and then headed for the bathroom. I was feeling a bit lightheaded, so I decided it was time to get out my glucometer and check my blood sugar again.

Well, I had trouble with it. For whatever reason, the first time I stabbed myself with the lancet, my finger didn’t want to bleed. I got a tiny drop and decided to try it. Unfortunately, there wasn’t enough blood there to fill the test strip and the machine errored out. So I grab another strip, and poke another finger. Now by this time, I’m starting to get concerned because I’ve started sweating profusely. I know I just went for a brisk walk, but I didn’t exert myself that much.

The second time, I got enough blood and the machine flashed up a number. That number was 50. So I immediately spotted Diane, flagged her down, showed her the results (fortunately, she understood what I was showing her) and asked her to get me something sweet NOW. She blinked, ran back into the kitchen and came out with a full glass of Coke for me. (She didn’t even take time to put ice in the glass, bless her heart.) Needless to say, I chugged that down. By this time, the patron sitting at the table across the aisle from me has figured out what’s going on and starts in asking “are you okay”? (Note: While the concern is appreciated on some levels, diabetics are not exactly in the best state of mind when they’re blood sugar is critically low. As such, overbearing acts of concern like CONSTANTLY asking if they’re okay is not a good idea. If you’re in that situation, give the diabetic person something with lots of sugar — fruits are best — and then leave them alone. I managed to be courteous, but not much more than that.)

I get the impression that Diane also went back in the kitchen and told them to move my order to the front of the line, because it wasn’t that long after that incident that my food came out. It may have just been that they were having a slow day, but it just seemed rather fast to me. But I got the soda and real food in me and in fifteen minutes my blood sugar was up to 72. That’s not fantastic, but it’s generally stable for me. And by the time I got home, I was clear up to 166. To tell you the truth, I’m surprised that it wasn’t even higher with all the sugar from the soda. Not that I’m complaining, mind you.

So I learned a very important lesson. Even if I had a late breakfast and a light snack, I will NOT go walking before I eat if I’m having a late lunch. I should’ve known better, really. But I figured I ate breakfast late enough and had that apple so that my blood sugar should be just fine. Apparently, I was wrong. Not that this totally surprises me. I’ve found incidents where my blood sugar level seems to be time-dependent as much as food-dependent. For example, I’ve noticed a tendency to have higher blood sugar in the evening if I eat supper after 5:30 than if I eat it around 5:00. The fact that I take my medicines later and test my blood sugar later when I do that doesn’t matter. Even with everything moved the same amount of time later into the evening, the results come back higher. So apparently, this is another of these oddities.