High blood sugars and emotions

It's funny.....not ha ha funny....but more so odd funny....during our entire experience with diabetes, I have never been able to tell if there was a mood difference with Emma when her blood sugars were high. She always seemed like the same kid to me. It never caused her to be mean or angry or anything really....the only sign that anything was wrong was that she had really dark circles under her eyes and would drink a lot of water.
Well, last Saturday night during our bent canula...HIGH BG situation...I got to experience first hand what exactly will happen to Emma when she hasn't gotten any insulin for a few hours. As she laid on the couch enduring an injection in her belly, a new site change, and being forced to drink as much water as possible.......she was in full blown panic mode. She would jump from one second of bawling her eyes out unable to communicate to me what was wrong and what was going through her mind........to another second of laughing hysterically at the cat.........to another second of uncontrollable tears and anger........to frustration and worry.......to hysterical fear and stress. It was like I was witnessing a complete breakdown in her ability to function. Yes her body was there....it was functioning...doing it's best to cope with the overload of sugar in her blood and the lack of insulin and the lame ass pancreas. But her mind....her poor innocent 8 year old mind....it was lost in a whirlwind of emotions and there was nothing I could do to help her except focus on the task at hand. Change her site, give her insulin, and try my best to comfort her. It was such an overwhelming and helpless feeling. Like being lost and stranded out in the middle of the ocean...carrying Emma on my back...floating along searching for land, some sort of light to guide me back to reality. I had no idea what I was doing. I was flying by the seat of my pants and taking it a moment at a time. Putting out fires left and right, trying to help my baby make sense of what was going on in her head. I usually resort to humor in high stress situations...I do whatever i can to make her smile...to make her laugh...and perhaps forget for a moment what is stressing her out....distract her mind and ease her into a more comfortable and familiar place. When you are up against extremely high blood sugars though...in the middle of the night...it's not easy. It's like trying to make a roomful of stuffy middle aged balding overweight men laugh at a knock knock joke. Or like trying to get a giggle out of a roomful of terrorists by telling them a "you might be a redneck..." joke. It's just not going to happen.
Now that it is Monday, i can sit back and reflect on what happened that night. I can breathe a sigh of relief and be greatful that we made it through this time. While in the midst of all the chaos that night, I kept telling Emma that "we can do this" and "we are stronger than diabetes" and "we will be fine" and "Mommy will fix this" and "hang in there, baby...you are tough and we will win this time!"........at the time they were just words to me. I said them to her....but I myself didn't believe that I could fix it...I believed that I had no idea what I was doing. But we did it...we made it again...we won.
I learned a couple of things that night....one being that the majority of the world (myself included) really take our functioning pancreases for granted. We eat, we drink, we laugh, and we cry....all without a second thought as to what a miracle it actually is to have a functioning pancreas. We take it for granted. I learned that my kid is tough. She is tougher than diabetes...even when she is screaming and crying and angry and sad and worried and upset....she is still tougher than it. She lives it. I am merely a supporting actor in this thing. I am simply standing on the sidelines cheering her on and helping her along the way. SHE is the one living it...day in and day out...no breaks...every single second of her life. It's her disease...and she it stronger than it. I learned that diabetes is a bastard...and it will affect not only your body...but your mind...your emotions...your thoughts...and your ability to feel like you are in control of them. While that lesson learned makes me unbelievably sad, it also makes me greatful to know that my kid made it through that moment...she did it...we did it...and we can do anything.