Selfish Sleeper

Sometimes I feel very selfish when it comes to my sleep. I often go to bed earlier than the boy because he's a snorer and I know if I'm asleep before he is I can usually make it through the night, even when he's sawing logs.

I have started to notice that I'm becoming more selfish when it comes to his diabetes as well.

This summer it seems like there have been more middle of the night lows than usual. In fact, it's been about 1 a week for the past month or so - there have even been a couple incidences where the paramedics have had to show up and help me get his glucose levels back up. And more times than not, if he makes it through the night, he's waking up in a low-blood sugar state.

A few weeks back I asked him what he used to do when he was living alone...how he dealt with all these lows. His answer was simply that he's more careful when he lives alone.

That didn't seem fair to me. So because he knows that I'm here to take care of him, he can be more lax with his personal diabetes care? Really?!

Last night was another low incident, though I'm pretty sure it wasn't because of insulin confusion this time, thankfully. But I woke up to him making all kinds of strange sounds in bed, so I grabbed his glucometer and tested for him...with his groggy permission of course.

Sure enough it read 28. Damn. Out of curiosity I checked the history and when he tested before bed he was at 36. So did he not juice up before coming to bed or did he take that much insulin with dessert that it was still dropping even after getting some more sugar?

Probably a question I will never know the answer to.

So I got him some juice, woke him up, made him drink it, then he fell right back asleep. I on the other hand, did not. I stared at the clock. 2:12 am. I laid there for 30 minutes to monitor his behavior, which was basically unchanged.

About the time he rolled onto his back and crowded me, I headed to the couch for some peace and quiet. I knew that laying there in bed, I wasn't going to get any sleep the rest of the night.

I'm getting used to sleeping on the couch a couple nights a week. I guess it's not so bad. At least I'm getting some restful sleep for part of the night.

I do feel like it's selfish to leave the bed, especially not knowing exactly where his blood sugar levels stand, but I'm starting to realize that I need sleep too - even if it's not in the same room as the love of my life.