No man is an island: Surviving requires support

Since I last typed out an arti­cle, my ther­apy dog, Bella, and I par­tic­i­pated in the United Air­lines Fan­tasy Flight for ter­mi­nally and crit­i­cally ill chil­dren and their fam­i­lies. The dogs in atten­dance were pet­ted, hugged, and posed for pho­tos on that spe­cial night. The chil­dren loved the dogs. Those kids are fight­ing to sur­vive. I pray that they over­come their diag­noses and that they beat the odds.

Since I com­posed my last arti­cle I went shop­ping with a dear friend, Betty, who is deal­ing with dia­betes. Man­ag­ing her blood sug­ars within a nor­mal range increases her chances of sur­vival. Betty con­fided to me that her blood sugar read­ings have not been stable.

She said, “If I feel faint and start to pass out, know that my blood sug­ars are to blame.”

Betty’s sur­vival depends on han­dling more than just what she eats. Tak­ing the right type and amount of med­ica­tion is very vital to a nor­mal blood sugar range. Know­ing how much and how intense activ­ity is to be per­formed also gauges blood sugars.

Stress can affect blood sug­ars. Being emo­tion­ally or phys­i­cally sick can cause blood sug­ars to be elevated.

Betty had to park the car in the back park­ing lot of the shop­ping mall. We walked briskly because of the chilly rain. She was huff­ing and puff­ing by the time we opened the depart­ment store door.

Since she is a very inde­pen­dent lady, I respected her judg­ment and believed her when she said that she felt fine. We pro­ceeded to shop.

Betty’s sur­vival depended on my read­ing the cues of her low blood sugar. She became con­fused and could not think clearly. I watched her hands start to shake. Sweat beaded up on her fore­head. She became irri­tated when I asked if she needed help. Still Betty declared that she was OK. When I asked her when she ate last, she could not remem­ber. I was her sur­vival link, but she was my ride home.

Luck­ily there was a food court nearby and I guided her to a seat while I ordered for us. I bought her a cookie and a cup of decaf tea; I put one sugar packet in it. Betty nearly swal­lowed the choco­late chip cookie whole. After a few sips of tea, she began to feel bet­ter. We shared a huge piece of pizza and sat for nearly an hour. Before long, Betty was laugh­ing and chat­ting as if noth­ing had happened.

Sur­vival is a basic instinct. The ter­mi­nally ill want to sur­vive to see another Christ­mas. Peo­ple with dia­betes want to sur­vive to live a healthy life.

We all need sup­port. John Donne said it best: “No man is an island …”

Bob­bie Ran­dall is a cer­ti­fied dia­betes edu­ca­tor, reg­is­tered, licensed dietit­ian. She super­vises a dia­betes self-management train­ing pro­gram at Dun­lap Com­mu­nity Hos­pi­tal, Orrville. Con­tact her at brandall@dunlaphospital.org or 330–684-4776.

Posted by Bobbie Randall on Dec 15 2011. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.