Good morning! I was so excited for this past Tuesday – a lot of fun stuff on my schedule.
I just had a great night’s sleep (7-8 hours) and was getting bundled up in my Thermogear to embrace the winter. I’m out the door for an exhilarating early morning run.
Huh, it’s actually not that cold out. Mid/high 40’s (I dressed for 20’s/low 30’s).
Too late, off to go meet my friends.
5 miles done, and I’m amazed how much one can sweat in 40’s weather.
Our group wraps it up, as usual, over endorphin charged stories at Starbucks.
I check my phone and I’m running a littttle behind. Oops.
Scoot into the house to see the kids scrambling up and down the steps grabbing bags and patting dogs.
Krissy is at the top of the steps.
“Honey, good run? Our water is down for some reason. I called a MAN to fix it while you’re at “work”.”
“Why the emphasis on ‘man’ and why the air quotes around work?”
She walks back into the bedroom snickering or giggling, too much of her face is hidden for me to tell.
Okay, I’ll just shower at work after the AHA Board Meeting. I change clothes and run around looking for a bottle of water.
Where’s the water?
Oh, well, that’ll help – package of CostCo Salted Mixed Nuts – that will hold me over until the meeting. Ugh, I’m really late!
I grow increasingly thirsty on the 20 minute drive. Was it the run? Coffee? Nuts?
Whoooaa, not good to feel lightheaded behind the wheel but, it’s right around the corner.
Just missed the networking component, most of the board members are now finding their seats when I see something so perfect…so PERFECT that I snap a pic!
YES!!! So many wonderful drink options. Heehee…everyone has their back turned.
They’re a little warm, but who cares. I Chug. One. After. The. Other. So delicious. I find my seat. SO HAPPY!
Shhhh, these board meetings can get serious with matter being discussed.
“Good morning and thank you all for coming! Did everyone get to see our Rethink Your Drink display when you walked in. You know, before David polished it off. What David just consumed was 317 grams of sugar, the equivalent of 85 teaspoons. Recommended limit for women (she looks at me) is 25 grams/day, or about 6 teaspoons. We had (she looks at me again, pauses), we had been taking this display around to local elementary schools to show the kids how much sugar they are actually taking in.
(Why does she keep looking over at me?) Those white things, David, are sugar cubes reflecting what you took in. Would you like those too?”
With my head down, I try and sneak a count of the people in the room. Yup. Oh, God.
She faces the room, “If it’s okay with everybody, we’ll go ahead now and get started…”
During the first 45 minutes of the meeting I had so much energy, but little focus.
As the meeting grew older, I started to get a little sleepy. You know, thinking jeez it’s only8:50, feels like 3:15.
9:30 a.m. Time to rush back to the hospital.
As we walk into the first room, my nurse, Holly, looks me up and down and asks if I feel all right.
“I’m good”
A great tip I got in training was to always
sit down when I see my patients. With this first office visit however, I was glad they brought the entire extended family (5 adults and kids) so all the chairs would be taken. If I sat down, I’d be asleep.
The patient talks for a few minutes uninterrupted, and I’m getting so tired.
I have to cut him off. I go over to the examining table to listen to Paul’s chest.
“Good story, now if you could go ahead and lift up your shirt Mr. Dixon?”
The last thing I remember was seeing Mr. Dixon’s bare chest.
When I woke up in the ER, one of the little Dixon girls was listening to my forehead with my stethoscope and I noticed three of fingers hurt really bad. It appears most of the Dixon family and Holly must have made the trip with me.
My wife, Krissy, (how’d she get here?) is standing at the foot of the bed, talking to the doctor.
“Mrs. Sadgirl I presume? Nice to meet you, I’m Dr. Underhill and I work here in the ED. At first I thought it was a mistake, but we checked his blood sugar with 3 different glucometers. It registered zero on all three.”
“Zero? Is that possible, doctor?”
“Until today, we didn’t think so. He was slurring his words but he handed us his phone and we found this picture. We called over to the nice women at the
AHA and when they explained things it all made sense.”
Dr. Underhill turned his body away from Krissy and brought his hand to his mouth for a second before continuing. I think he was proud of himself that he had made it that far.
“Dr. Sadgirl”, he snickered after the ‘Dr’ part, “had something called ‘reactive hypoglycemia’. This is also called postprandial hypoglycemia and it is referring to having low blood sugar after a meal. It usually occurs within four hours after eating.”
“Thank you, Doctor.”
Krissy glares down at me.
“Is there anything he can do to avoid it in the future?”
“Umm, yeah. He could start by not consuming the
ReThink Your Drink display. If he does that?…yeah, he should be okay.”
