Diabetic Cyborg Life: It’s Always Worth IT
Just a quick observation I have about people’s fixation on watching their stats throughout the day on Medium. Sometimes after I publish, I too want pull the story and crawl under a rock if it does not immediately have some interaction and activity. We just have to breath wait a bit and maybe a few regulars, if we are lucky to have any, will see it and read it. Don’t so hastily assume it is a failure and kill it!
The last week of May and first of June was a scrap to get through because health and health issues for me. A trip to the emergency room from a fever and the constant battle for my multiple sclerosis, or MS, medication Copaxone were both things that complicated those days. Yet, now I sit here wiser and more persistent than before.
The weeks before my ER visit I had odd feelings of chills and almost debilitating shivers spells that never stopped until bedtime. Thanks to my MS and diabetes I usually am hot and sweaty most of the time unless it is around seventy degrees in the room. Now in the afternoons I always get really cold and bad chills.
This all lead to that trip to the ER. I was convinced my MS was acting up since I was unmediated for three weeks and that was part of the chills. After I got a normal body temperature ready from my ear thermometer. Then I got my blood glucose, or BG, to around 150 I was trying to go to bed around six-o’clock as usual.
Continual shivers to an almost seizures like state followed me to bed. At one point I really wondered it I was having my first seizure, but I did not lose consciousness so that was not the case. A powerful migraine headache also was setting in when I was trying to sleep along with the chills. I was convinced it was proof of a MS relapse and a firing brain lesion, or flare or spark as some call them, after I tossed and turned for almost an hour.
Then I called my Mom from bed saying I think I need to go to the ER. I got up and checked my blood glucose, or BG, and it was approximately 185. That is high for a BG, so that was not an issue. I packed some things I knew I might want for at least an overnight stay and we were off to the ER.
When I was trying to sleep I took a promethazine as a sleep aid. Yes, it is for vertigo, but I use them to sleep sometimes when I cannot. After arriving at the ER nausea began to set in so I took a Valium prescribed by my neurologist for that. Knowing I was at the hospital already made me think that on top of the promethazine that was not an issue if anything went wrong.
That Valium was a bit of a mistake in hindsight and something I would not repeat. The Valium is supposed to be half but I had to do it that at the ER. Taking that whole pill never real came back to haunt me, but I did get really tired.
The nurses got me checked in and the techs drew that blood and test were being ran probably three or fours hours after our arrival at the ER. The nurse found my temperature was at one hundred and one degrees. I knew then right in going to the ER since my endocrinologist told me I must go whenever a fever is over one hundred. The ER doctor told me I would get an IV of saline solution for hydration and Tylenol for the fever.
At around one A.M. nothing showed to be wrong with me after many hours of waiting in an ER triage room. All the blood work and test showed no infections or illnesses were found. The ER doctor said his conclusion was the dehydration was caused by lack of fluids. That combined with stress and physical activity could cause the fever.
We arrived home close to two A.M. totally exhausted and had our puppies wanting to lick us to death. I petted the doggos, quickly put up the things I packed and went to turn-in at last. The state I was in did not result in instant sleep, but I did mange to finally fall asleep around two-thirty A.M.
A few days later I was faced with the fight for my Copaxone. Walgreens was supposedly to “auto-fill” it but that did not work out very well. After a long two days before the day it was going to be filling, I realized that was not going to happen. Sorry, Walgreens I had ER and fever issues on my mind.
It was Saturday before I grasped that the meds were not coming before that Monday. Calling them over that weekend was a waste of time. No one ever called back to help me get my meds in time to keep my Monday, Wednesday and Friday schedule. That meant another missed dose of Copaxone around a month after three weeks of not having any at all. Hope is missing one dose after a full month of appropriate medication does not mess with my brain’s state right before another round of imaging.
Life now is further carryover of the impact of my MS diagnosis from roughly two years ago. The symptoms I had then have either stopped with appropriate medication of steroids or Copaxone or gotten worse. Though, having to deal with the new signs of MS have come along seems to be the chore I face now.
Nevertheless, I strive to live a life of optimism and positivity. I do that not for any deity or religious faith or idea, but because I feel duty abound the humankind to be happy and hopeful and show positivity when I can. My mother from an early age ingrained the feeling of gratitude in me. We ought to show appreciation for the simple fact we are here and I must share that idea as much as can in the time I have on this mud ball called Earth.
Like this blog? Watch the Vlog coming Wednesday, July 3rd!!
