Member-only story
A Life-Threatening Crisis at Age 10 Changed Me
You Can’t Always Count on Others
It came on quickly, I wasn’t sure what was happening. All the energy had escaped my body. I felt jittery and lightheaded, my palms were slick with sweat.
I was ten-years-old at the time, home alone, and slipping into a dangerous low blood sugar episode. As a type 1 diabetic, this wasn’t the first time, but it was still new to me.
When low blood sugar happens, I get a numb, prickly feeling inside. It’s like the pins and needles you feel when your arm falls asleep after lying on it. But I experience that tingling numbness inside my entire body, from my head down through my chest and into my arms and legs. In just a few minutes, as my brain is deprived of glucose, I will be overwhelmed by confusion. It’ll be impossible to think or speak clearly.
With every minute that passes, it gets worse. Eventually, I will go into seizures, lose consciousness, and ultimately death.
It’s frightening.
I needed to do something fast before I passed out.
Once I realized what was happening, my body followed the response programmed into me by my doctor and my Mom. I needed orange juice, immediately. This was the standard practice taught from day one. The natural sugars in OJ absorb…
