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So, I am sitting here on Sunday morning...awake at 6:15 am...actually I have been awake since about 5:15.... I can't sleep.

My mother is here visiting from Florida and yesterday, she almost died. No, I am serious. My mother is diabetic and went into a diabetic insulin shock because she had taken her medicine at 7:30 anad had not had ANYTHING to eat (which I didn't know), and by 9:30 she started to feel like she needed to eat something.

I have seen that look before. I had a friend who was diabetic and because he too had a habit of giving himself a SHOT and not eating properly,every once in a while he would get what I call "the diabetic look". I think she had a slower reaction than he did because her insulin is in pill-form. The look she had was distinct. It is a mixture of "I really don't feel well, I am needing something IMMEDIATELY and I need it QUICK becuase I have waited to long". So, when I was sitting here trying to make breakfast, I saw the look when she said "i think I need to eat something". I said " you want some orange juice?" (because orange juice gets sugar into the bloodstream quickly and because I knew that that's why my friend used to drink when he took his insulin to balance out the chemical reaction that was going on in his body).

She said yes. I was sitting down and got up and began to get it for her. My 3-yr old was running aaround like he usually does and my husband (whose back was hurting) was upstairs laying down with a heating pad on his back. I gave her the o.j. and she drank some and said "put some sugar in it". I was in denial but a twinge of pain shot up into my heart because what that request meant was I am feeling bad QUICKLY and I need MORE sugar to get into my system FASTER . By this time, she was sweating (this too is an effect of your blood sugar dropping too low). I was then getting scared but was trying to ignore the panic I was beginning to really feel. She drank some of the o.j./sugar mix and was looking even sweatier. I said "do you want to lie down" and she said yes. I said "do you feel like you can get up?" She said "yeah, but I might just stay right here". I said "o.k.". About a minute more went by. I busied myself in the kitchen starting to take the frying pan out to begin making breakfast, to stave my mind from the thought that I was thinking "please sugar, get in her system...please sugar get in her system" , while praying that she would not get worse. I I put the pan on the stove and turned on the eye. I was talking to her and looking at her to see if she was alright and she started shaking and convulsing and as I ran over to her shouting "Mama!" she passed out. I began screaming for my husband and he came rushing down the stairs with the heating pad still strapped to his back.

She was unconscious and unresponsive with her eyes open, for about 30 seconds and I thought she was going to die. I was shouting to her and she was clammy and hot. I swear it was the longest 30 seconds of my life. She slowly began to come to and get her faculties..... I was already on the phone with 911 before she came to. She finally after what seemed like an ETERNITY (but was only seconds)began to come to. When she was kinda coming to she was moaning in a way that is still haunting to me. She woke up and heard me on the phone and was like "what are you doing?" (because she heard me giving them info about her on the phone). I said " I am calling 911 because you passed out and went into Insulin Shock !!". I said, "you passed out!". She said "No, I didn't". Me and my husband said "YES YOU DID".(she has no memory after drinking the sugar/o.j. concoction to the point where she said "what are you doing" as I was on the phone). My husband put my son upstairs and the paramedics were already here. The Fire Truck AND the EMS came. Fortunately, we have a fire house on the VERY NEXT street next to ours so they were here quickly. Literally by the time they got here she was awake and alert. Her blood sugar, apparently rising.

I was about to fall apart. I was trying not to cry because I didn't want her to see me cry and she knows that I am not real good in high stress situations because I am a worier. As a matter of fact, she USUALLY won't tell me if she needs to have a test or something if it seems "suspicisous" by her dr's because she knows how I worry. My mother is the only thing I have , and yet she refuses to move back to Michigan from Florida. She's gotten used to having "no snow" ans simply doesn't want to live here. And I cannot uproot me and my husbands' careers to move there. That's unrealistic. So, I have deaded the converstaion because it's always at a stalemate with her. But now.... after this..... We will have a talk before she leaves, just me and her.

I am her only child and she is my only parent (my father died 13 years ago...as well, all of my grandparents are dead too). Her side of the family has always been small,so there are no brother's & sisters, cousins, aunts, uncles,etc. ...I am it. But she is stubborrn. I am going to try to persuade her to come back here. She is 72 years old and does everything that you or I can do, but she has a few medical issues...nothing acutely life threatening (diabetes, high blood pressure, glaucoma) but things that if something like this were to go awry again, I would not be able to do SHIT to get to her within 6-12 hours! She does have an old ass cousin (yes I said it) who is OLDER and half-feeble, that is down there, and a half-dependable girlfriend she made down there but that sooooo does not make me feel better. My mother is more of a loner....never been the partying type, more of the shy. reserved, stay at home type, hence her not having made more than 2 real friends (one of them a cousin she reconncected with) since she's been down there (excluding men she dated and the fool she married since she's been down there). She blamed this "incident" on the fact that her dr. had given her a different medicine. Whatever. You need to be closer. My mother is VERY independent and VERRRRRRY obstinate. Truth is .... I can't make her move. As a matter of fact... I had ALREADY been trying to get her to move because shit it TOO expensive.

Anyway.... the paramedics tested her blood sugar and it was 141 (a little high for a "regular" blood sugar, but since she had basically a "shot" of sugar..... it was expected. A normal blod sugar is typically between 70-120). But I think "what if I had not suggested the orange juice? What if I had not HAD orange juice" (the only reason I had it was because I had been SICK a couple weeks ago and had it left over....we do not drink orange juice), what if I had been upstairs alseep and my hisband was just lying there and it was just her and my son???? She didn't make enough noise that I woulda heard her in my OWN HOUSE!

But that wasn't the reality. God had me right where I was supposed to be and had me become more aware of my blessings. My mother is fine and we actually went out and went shopping yesterday afternoon.

So , on this Sunday, the day before my 37th birthday, I count my blessings. count, count, count.