I have a pretty active job. Over the course of a day I run fitness tests, design exercise programs, and instruct classes. Most of the classes I run are pretty low key, I’m mostly going around coaching and correcting people on technique and providing encouragement to everyone who comes. There’s one glaring exception to this rule: spin class.
Sadly, I don’t look this awesome when I teach it. I usually look like I’m on the verge of death. Or puking, which is just as bad.
We had a coworker move to another location, and at the moment I’m the one in charge of taking care of her spin class. It’s scary, I’m not going to lie. Thank God it’s only 40 minutes. The first time I went to teach it, my BG’s were at 8.4 ( I tried to make it that little bit higher than I started, thanks to the advice from Scully and Celine) and I came out of it 40 minutes later sitting at 4.2. That’s a huge drop! So my goal when I’m teaching from now on is to have it at least in the 8s before I start. Which sounds great in theory. Diabetes doesn’t usually listen like that.
When I went to teach it this week, I checked my sugars 30 minutes before I went to set up, which is 45 minutes before the actual class starts. My meter beeped back with a 3.5. F^*%. That’s OK, I have glucose tabs in my bag! What’s that? I only have 4??? F*#^. I took those and I ate them, and then followed up with a yogurt. 15 minutes to go time. Test again. 6.9. F*^#. If the trend from last time is to be believed, I’d end up super low at the end of class, likely in the 2s. Which would be very very bad. Wait! I have change! I can go grab a Gatorade from the pop machine. One of the machines is out of order. And the other ate my change. Goddamnit! 10 minutes til class so I have no time to run out and grab something. So what am I going to do????
And then I had a flash of inspiration. There’s a lot of coffee drinkers at my job, and as such there’s a ton of sugar packages in the lunch room. So I grabbed my water bottle, and dumped 4 packets of sugar into it, for a grand total of around 20g of carb. And then I was out the door to teach class, sipping on sugar water throughout the whole thing. That was my last minute MacGuyver solution!
OK, so I didn’t use a paper clip…still counts!
It tasted like shit! And it made me feel like puking a couple of times. But it did the job. Came out of class 40 minutes later with a BG of 3.7. A little low, but nowhere near what it could have been without the extra supplementation. I treated the low with some candy from a coworker and then followed it up with a carb/protein drink and all was well.
So it all ended well but it could’ve ended up really bad. I was lucky this time. Note to self: always have way more low treatments on hand than I think I’ll need. You never know when they could come in handy. And it’s worth it if I never have to drink sugar water like that again! Yuck!
Insulin and Iron 