Taxi drivers and visits to A&E

Last night I had a phone call from a friend.

"I've been low all afternoon, and I'm throwing up. Should I go to A&E?"

YES YES YES was my answer to that. "I'll meet you there."

I threw all my crap in my bag and rang out the door. I grabbed some cartons of OJ on the way 'just in case'.

I discovered the bus had left a few minutes before and it would be over 30 minutes wait; I decided to run the first part of the journey (I would have had to catch 2 buses to the hospital). Before doing that I tested:

3.3. "S**t!" Down went the first OJ carton, and a phone call to a taxi rank. The taxi arrived shortly and the taxi driver asked me why I was going to A&E.

"My friend is a type 1 diabetic, he has a low blood sugar level but is throwing up so he can't get his blood sugar levels up - A&E is the safest place for him to be."

verynicetaximan: "Don't they treat you kids with tablets these days, you don't have injections do you?"

Cue a lengthy, slightly hypo discussion about the difference between type 1 and type 2, the medications we can use, and my pump! I even showed him my cannula and the pump itself. I'll give him his due - he took what seemed to be a genuine interest and seemed to keep up with the conversation.

To cut a long story short, after an injection of Metoclopromide - dude was fine. Levels stayed in the 9s and 10s and it's all over now from what I hear.

Motto? Even if things are probably going to turn out okay, when you have type 1 in the frame, there's a big chance they might not. Quote of the day came from the ridiculously stuck up doctor in A&E:

"We see millions of people like you everyday - you have norovirus."
me: "No, you don't see millions of him. He has type 1 diabetes."

edited to clarify: her point was that he was no one special and should go home - my point was that with type 1, he was NOT like everyone else and needed to be taken seriously!