Last Monday, May 11, started out just like an ordinary Monday workday. I loaded up my bag of clothes, got in my truck and began driving to the jobsite in Tahlequah. I stopped at McD’s and picked up a bacon, egg and cheese sandwich and a hash brown, then hopped over to QuikTrip and grabbed a sugar-free AMP Energy Drink and a PowerAde.
Roughly 90 minutes later, we pull into the gravel drive of the jobsite where I proceed to take my morning shot of insulin, eat a banana and a glucose tablet. (A glucose tablet is a simplified form of sugar that is easily dissolved into your blood stream. It’s used when I can feel my blood-glucose levels getting too low. This morning, however, I did not feel my glucose level to be low, but for some reason I took a tablet anyway.)
After a couple quick hours of work, Jeff calls me up and tells me he can’t get his truck up a hill because he is loaded down with rock. So, I grab another sugar-free AMP energy drink, hop in the Loader and drive out to him in order to unload a couple pallets of rock off his truck so he can make it up the hill. Somewhere around this time, I get this ‘twitch’. I’m not certain how exactly to describe it, but it felt like a mixture of: muscles that felt like they needed to be stretched out; some other odd muscle feeling that seems like you just need to ‘shake it’ out of your muscles; a little bit of grogginess / tiredness that you try to ‘blink’ your eyes awake through it; and a progressively lowering capacity for motor skills and coordination. It was an odd sensation, but at the time I was not able to recognize the feelings for being odd. I figured that I was still a little bit groggy from the drive up or muscles were sore from previous work, so I continued working.
After we got the truck up the hill, we took the truck, trailer and loader back to the site. At some point, I got off the loader and asked Jeffrey to drive it while I took the truck to the equipment barn. My coordination and thinking was bothering me too much that I didn’t want to risk damaging anything, so I asked Jeff to run the loader and I drove the truck & trailer back to the barn to unhook the trailer.
It was somewhere during this time that things went downhill fast for me. I don’t have any clear memory of the details of what exactly took place. Most of the following is a paraphrase of what Jeffrey and Drew, his business partner, later told me of what happened.
Jeff had followed me back to the equipment barn to fill up the loader with gas while I tried to park the trailer and unhook it. There was a large turnaround area where I tried to maneuver through, but instead had put the truck & trailer into a jackknife. It was a simple enough thing to fix, but instead of fixing it, I was simply going straight forward and straight back… repeatedly. After watching this a few minutes, Jeff came over to the truck and told me to just park it and he would move the trailer over with the loader. After he had done so, he started to head back over to the main area of the jobsite, but instead, stopped and waited for me. He saw I was trying to turn the truck around, but had shifted into Reverse and was just sitting there staring out the rearview mirror at nothing… for several minutes. When he came over to see what was wrong, I was having difficulties starting the truck. Jeff later told me that I was trying to start the truck while the gear was in reverse. He would shift the gear into Park, then start the truck… then I would shift into Reverse and turn the truck off.
He decided he had seen enough of this odd behavior and had someone help to get me out of the truck, but was having difficulty because my mind and body were not responding well at all. When he would ask me something, I would only respond with a partial sentence, then pause for 10-15 seconds and then repeat the same partial sentence over again. Jeffrey called Drew and told him they needed to take me to the hospital. When they asked me for the keys to my truck, I kept trying to give them one of my glucose tablets instead. I was also tensing my muscles and closing my hands into fists very tightly as if I was holding onto something, afraid of letting go.
*I don’t have any memory of any of that happening.*
I DO remember being in a ‘dreamlike’ state where Jeff & Drew kept asking me if I was okay and were trying to hold me up while taking me to my truck. But it was more like one of those dreams where you don’t really know what is going on, but you are trying to respond, yet others don’t hear you. I remember they were asking me some questions and I know I was responding in my head, but I don’t think I was verbalizing those thoughts. During this ‘dreamlike’ state on the way to the hospital, I remember Drew asking me how I felt – on a scale of 1 to 100. By this time – in my head – I was tired of them babying me and figured that if they were intent on taking me to the hospital, I might as well indulge them. In my head, I thought I was doing great – close to a 96, but to make them feel better, I told them I was only doing about an 87. Later Drew told me that when he asked me that question, they estimated that I looked and acted more like a 50 at best.
Here again, I do not have any memory of what took place in the next few minutes but we must have made it to the ER. Evidently, Drew was given directions to the Tahlequah Hospital, but somehow he had driven us to the Memorial Hospital in Stillwell.
I do remember another ‘dreamlike’ state where I was laying down on my back somewhere looking up at a ceiling. There was noise and movement on my left side and I could hear a female asking questions and Drew was answering some. I felt someone grab and hold my leg and I knew it was Jeffrey. By his grip, I knew he was scared and concerned. All this time, I could not understand what the big fuss was that they were having over me: Why are we not at work? Where did they take me? Why am I laying on my back somewhere? During this internal questioning, I heard through my haziness, the nurse saying something to the effect of ‘This will bring him back pretty quick’ and in my own head I remember thinking, ‘If it’s not too late.’
Moments later, my mind *snapped* back. I don’t know how else to describe it, other than all the haziness, cloudiness or ‘dreamlike’ state was all cleared out and the gears of my mind all *clicked* back into motion. Staring up at the ceiling, I tried to put the pieces back together of what I could remember happening: My earlier ‘strange’ feelings and inability to drive the loader, Jeff’s concern and questioning how I felt, Jeff and Drew driving me to the ER, the nurse giving me a shot of something. That’s when all the information crashed in on me and I knew what had happened. It all added up to one thing: My blood glucose level had dropped so low that my mind was fighting to remain conscious. And I had not felt it coming on at all.
Evidently, the nurse at this hospital had the knowledge and wisdom to check my glucose level as soon as they told her I was diabetic. As Drew told me, when she saw how low it was, she ‘sprang’ into action and immediately got the shot in me. I don’t remember the exact name of the shot, but I know what it is. It is a fast acting, simplified sugar solution that is used on diabetics when their glucose level is dangerously low. It quickly brings the glucose level back up to a safe state for normal functioning.
Normally, I can tell when my blood glucose level is too high or too low and I am able to counteract it with either insulin or glucose tablets, respectively. But I think those symptoms were masked that morning by the multiple energy drinks within a short time frame – two large AMP sugar-free energy drinks and a PowerAde.
Laying there on the stretcher looking up at the ceiling and thinking about my life and my wife, I began to tear up. Kimberly and I had celebrated our 1st wedding anniversary the night before and I almost made her a young widow. We haven’t even had any children yet and I almost took that away from her. For years, I had not taken the best of care of myself, but instead used the excuse of ‘I don’t have enough money for a doctor, test strips, labwork, etc.’ For years, I’ve said ‘My diabetes isn’t that bad. It’s okay for me to: drink all this alcohol, eat the cookie dough that I love, not exercise or not be as active as I should.’
This day, I knew I almost paid the full price for that thinking.
Later, while waiting for Kimberly to arrive at the hospital and after listening to some of what Drew and Jeff told me what happened, I knew that it was only by the Grace of God and his Divine Hand that I was still alive.
Here is how I know. First, earlier that day, I had taken a glucose tablet for no reason. I remember taking it, but have no clue why I did because I didn’t feel my glucose level dropping. If I hadn’t taken that glucose tablet, my sugars would’ve dropped lower and I might not have had as much time to make it to the hospital as I had. Second, while Jeff and I were at the equipment barn moving the vehicles around, he started to go back to the main work area, but instead stopped the loader and watched me – knowing something was not quite right. I firmly believe his pause there was directed by heaven. If he had instead driven on the main work area, it would have easily been 15-30 more minutes before any attention would have been given to my current condition. Then it would’ve been at least 30 minutes longer before I was placed into the nurse’s care at the hospital – which may have been too late. Third, Drew was given directions to the hospital in Tahlequah, but thanks to his notoriously messed up driving ability, he found his way to the Memorial Hospital in Stillwell. Why would God guide Drew to a different hospital than where he was trying to go? I firmly believe that he had the right nurse (Fourth) waiting to take care of me. Obviously, by how well the nurse was able to spring into action – not worrying about vitals, patient data and other superfluous information – she instead focused on the immediate survival needs of the diabetic patient. After speaking with her, she said she had worked with diabetics in the past and was well versed on this particular type of situation and knew exactly what to do.
Do you see God’s hands in this picture? The hands pulling the glucose tablet from my pocket; the hands holding Jeffrey back and cautioning him to wait and watch me; the hands guiding Drew’s driving to the wrong hospital; the hands preparing the nurse to save my life.
I know that by all earthly things I should not be alive. I know by all worldly situations, I should be a statistic in a report or another picture in the obituaries. I know that only by the Heavenly Power and Grace of God and our Lord Jesus Christ that I am alive today. And for that, I give Thanks and Praise to God.
As a medical update:
Low blood glucose is quick to recover from – if caught in time. I am doing fine, thanks. Tuesday, I went out and bought a new glucose meter to test my blood glucose levels throughout the day. Today, May 18, I met with a doctor to get back on track with my regular doctor visits and the much needed blood work (after at least 12 years of not seeing a doctor for diabetes).
For those of you, like Kimberly and I, who know and believe in Heavenly power being greater than anything worldly, we thank you for your prayers.
