A Blood Sugar of 48 – Now and Then

Graham Daugherty • March 7, 2017

By Kirstie Bradway

So if you’re either a diabetic yourself or have a loved one with Type 1 Diabetes, you know that all lows are completely different. You could have a low of 50 and feel completely ‘normal’ as if you were 100, or you could have a low of 70 and feel as if you were 40 or 50.

Tonight was one of the bad lows. The really bad ones. I never got an alarm telling me his sugar was dropping. He went to bed 45 mins ago at around 100 with a straight line. I didn’t think we had anything to worry about, but I was wrong. Way wrong. I normally check my phone every 15 mins or so to see where he is because I’m over obsessed with checking his numbers on his CGM; as I’m sure any of you parents of T1’s are also! But tonight I was working (I’m a photographer) so I was editing away and the time just happened to get away from me until around 8ish. I realized it had been awhile so I checked and he was 48! FORTY EIGHT!!! I freaked out and ran up the stairs hoping that his CGM was just off and he wasn’t actually that low.


I wish I was wrong, but I wasn’t. He tested at 52. He wouldn’t open his mouth. He wouldn’t even move. I shook him and he finally moved a tiny bit. I put the straw in his mouth and his instincts finally kicked in and his started drinking. Once he started stirring a little bit, he also started shaking. A lot. Probably the most I’ve ever seen him shake during a low. I scooped him up and held him while he slept for the next 10 minutes kissing him with tears rolling down my face.

This was a scary one. One of the scariest yet I think. Not just because of the number, but how he was reacting to this number. He’s been at 48 before and you would have never even known by looking at him. He felt like a million bucks. But this low was one of his worst yet.



I hate that my baby has to live with this battle every single second of every single minute of every single day. It’s not fair to him; not one little bit. If I could take this away from him, I would in the blink of an eye. The constant fear of this disease weighs on me every minute of my life. The what-ifs that run through my head scare me half to death.

But unfortunately there is nothing we can do about any of it. And it sucks. So until there is a cure, I advocate. I raise awareness. And I fight. For him. For my husband. And for the thousands of other T1’s just like them. Because they are warriors. They are superheroes. And they deserve a cure.


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