I could have lost her

It was just your run of the mill average ordinary Friday. Emma went to school, came home, did the usual supper routine, and headed out to Walmart to pick up a few things. Just before we left I felt the exhaustion settling into my brain causing me to be a little more loopy than I normally am...I had only gotten about 4 hours sleep the night before (been struggling trying to get overnight basals good again...and we had to get up early to drive Shawn to work so I could have the car during the day to run some errands). In any case, I could feel it coming...the giggles, the craziness, the typical low feeling that I sometimes get (I'm actually hypoglycemic myself). Whenever I get this way Emma thinks it's hilarious and we usually wind up laughing like lunatics together having a great time. So, off we went to the store. On the way I had Emma check her BG just to make sure she wasn't low too because she was acting just as silly as me...she came out with a reasonable 9.9 (178)...I was ok with that because she had really just finished eating supper anyway. Well, we skip into the store and grab the usual juice, fruit snacks, and various other items that I always have on hand for low BG situations. We make our way up to the register to pay and Emma looks over at me from in front of the candy display and says to me "MOMMY, I think I'm looooow!" UGH...So I handed her the meter bag and she set up shop on that little shelf thing at the register that people would use to write checks back in the olden days...I mean seriously, who even writes checks at the store anymore? Not I anyway...it's all about the debit card in this house. Anyhoo...as she's checking, I go about my business of taking everything out of the cart and putting it up to be scanned. I happened to glance up and notice the cashier standing there...mouth hanging open...with a horrified look on her face. My first reaction was to giggle...because it was really ridiculous...she looked like she had just seen Emma performing open heart surgery at her register or something! So, I explained that my daughter has diabetes and she felt low so she was just checking her blood sugar...that seemed to calm her down a bit thankfully. Well, the meter informed us that she was 3.1....low...but not her lowest by any stretch of the imagination. So, I grabbed a thing of candy off the shelf and threw it at the cashier to scan and then gave it to Emma. She ate it no problem and we made our way to the parking lot and got in our car. I sat down and caught a glimpse of her in the rearview mirror. My heart raced up into my throat. I instantly began sweating and shivering all at the same time. Everything seemed to be moving in slow motion.
Emma was sitting there shaking uncontrollably...trying her hardest to focus all of her energy on eating the rest of the candy I had given her. The look on her face was like none I have ever seen. She was scared...terrified actually. I wanted to scoop her up in my arms and hold her as tight as I could and take that fear from her...take the shaking away...take the low feeling away...take the DAMNED diabetes away. It was the most helpless and lost feeling I have felt. Instead I ripped open my recently purchased food and gave her more...I gave her a fruit snack...opened the new orange juice container and had her take a couple swigs of it. We took it one bite at a time...I held the pieces for her and put each one in her mouth so she wouldn't have to contend with her shaking hands. I portrayed this calm and reassuring person on the outside just for her benefit...I wanted to exhude confidence...reassurance that she would be fine...she wasn't going to pass out...it would come back up and she would be just fine in no time at all. On the inside I was screaming and crying...praying...begging...shouting for help. Fear...fear that my child...my baby...my sweet, loving, and caring girl was going to pass out and have a seizure right here in the the car in the Walmart parking lot. I forced my eyes to leave her face for a second and they darted over to my purse...knowing the glucagon was in there if it came to that...my heart was pounding...praying that I wouldn't have to use it...sitting here in the car....at night...alone. I was praying that it wouldn't come to that. My mind was moving at lightening speed...trying to take in everything at once...fixing the low...saving my girl...searching out all of my tools for doing this...praying...begging for help...cursing this damned disease once again...cursing it for coming into our lives and causing such an enormous amount of stress and worry and terror in the most typical and ordinary of places...Walmart. All the while...my exterior was calm...relaxed...serene and reassuring...all for Emma...all for my sweet girl. There we were trapped inside this car...tucked away in the dark recesses of diabetes...fighting the good fight...battling the beast and hoping that this time we would still come out on top.

Well....we did....eventually...we won again. I wonder how many more times we will be lucky and win.

We went home and I spent the next 6 hours battling the most stubborn of highs. Was it a direct result of my overcorrecting her low? Was it her liver shooting out some stored glucagon to help the situation? Was it a combination of both? Who knows....who really cares.
All I know is we survived. We got the highs back down and survived. I wonder if the average person would think twice about the adventure in diabetes-land that could occur for a type 1 person just by simply making a run to a place as common as Walmart. I could have lost my daughter last night. I could have sat there in the drivers seat of my car in the dark parking lot and watched her slip away and leave me. Simple as that.  I don't know how any of us manage to still stand up straight at the end of the day after walking around with that amount of stress on our shoulders...the stress of keeping this amazing human being that we brought into this world alive every single second of every single day. It truly boggles my mind.