Hypo hamsters

I mentioned in my last post that I've been experiencing more hypos due to having my cannula in my thigh. The problem is almost sorted (working on 50% temp basals and finding out when I need to reduce it even more).

The first night after the cannula change I had one of the worst hypos I've ever had. I went down to 2.4 which really isn't all that low. I mean, it's very low - but I've been lower. This hypo though gave me some of the strongest symptoms I've ever had.

These included

• waking up unable to breathe properly
• standing up to go to the toilet, and falling into my wall
• almost falling off the toilet (amusing imagery but scary at the time)
• shaking like a leaf in a hurricane
• total confusion; writing on a friend's facebook wall asking if I could use ice cream as a hypo treatment (and getting international replies!)
• insane desire to just shut my eyes and go to sleep to get rid of all these feelings - as a child, the one mantra my mum had when I was hypo was 'do NOT go to sleep'
• and the weirdest one: my right eyesight went totally...weird. It was just like looking through a kaleidoscope - as if my eyesight had been chopped up into squares and those squares had moved around so the picture was totally wrong. This lasted for a good 30 mins or so and was really quite frightening to be honest; it scared me thinking about what a low blood glucose can do to the body

After about an hour, I was in good numbers and went back to sleep. I woke up slightly out of range - 10.1 if I remember correctly! - but seriously, with the way I'm known to rebound, I'm happy with a 10.1 after a 2.4.

I called my mum later - we're very close and she's the first person I ring after a bad hypo. I told her about the hypo and she said two things to me - one a bit eerie, and the other just ridiculous.

"I was thinking about you hypoing overnight last night. And for some reason, I took my mobile phone to bed with me, just in case you called me."

- how did she know I had nearly called her when I first tested at 2.4 and was unsure I could treat this myself? She amazes me. I told her she's a bit like a hypo dog...to which she replied the funniest thing I've heard in a while.

Mum: "well, because you can't have a dog [I rent my room!] you should have...a hypo hamster!"

Me: "and what would the hamster do when I go low?!"

Mum: "it would run faster around its wheel!"

I was in tears laughing at this comment. I can just picture a poor little hamster running around the wheel every time I went low! Honestly!