Incoherence and Adrenaline

Maddie had a fun filled evening with a friend, then attended a basketball game with my husband and Reilly.  When they got home, she checked her blood, and went to bed.  I don't know what it was because my husband had handled it.  The kids all went to bed at 10:00.  It's snowing outside, and I know that we aren't going to be able to go anywhere for the next day or two, so I didn't care that they were getting in bed so late.

Everything's fine.  The kids are asleep, Shawn is asleep, (unfortunately he's a early to bed person, and I'm a night owl), so I took the opportunity to watch some chick flicks I had DVR'd.

At about midnight, I hear footsteps on the stairs.  I'm good at footsteps.  I know who it is by the sound.  Reilly comes down slowly, steadily and quietly, all the way thinking up some imaginary ailment for which he needs medicine or a band aid, or a drink.  He's quiet because he peeps around the corner at me, knowing I'm going to say, "Get back to bed!"

Maddie comes down with a rhythmic pattern, almost like she's skipping, but still quietly because she knows I'm going to say, "What in the world are you doing out of bed??"

Brendan half steps and half slides, plus he's usually carrying some sort of blanket, or stuffed animal. He isn't quiet at all.  He comes running around the corner as if to say, "Here I am!  Out of bed!  Let's play!"

Another way I can tell is because Reilly holds the hand railing, Brendan runs his hands along the wall, and Maddie doesn't hold on at all.

But these steps were different.  It wasn't Shawn, because I could hear him snoring like a jack hammer upstairs.  These feet would go a few steps, then stop, then go a few steps faster, then stop, again.

Maddie came stumbling around the corner with that sleepy look on her face.  She wasn't looking at me, but she was trying to talk.  She was mumbling and incoherent, and looking all around the room, except she wasn't looking at me.   She was actually looking at the couch on the opposite side of the living room. 

"I'm......I've got to......I don't know....You know.....  What's that thing called?  Where's Mama?"

At this point, I'm frozen in fear, wondering if my Snuggie was making me camouflaged with the couch, or if she really didn't know where I was, and didn't know what she was saying.

As the "where's mama" was coming out of her mouth, (I was the only one awake, the only one downstairs, and I was right in front of her) I flew off the couch, literally, and went straight for the emergency glucose gel.  Incidentally, it's supposed to taste like cake icing, but she and I opened a tube one time, and I have to say--they didn't exactly hit the "icing" nail on the head.

Usually we do glucose tablets, but I didn't have time for those.  I didn't want to grab the Glucogon, because my hands were shaking, and I was afraid that would take too long, plus, that's for when they're passed out completely.  The gel is supposed to dissolve in your gums if you aren't able to swallow it quickly enough.

I threw that child down on the couch and squirted that whole tube in her mouth.  It probably looked like I was trying to kill her.  The funny thing about Maddie is that normally, she would have been fighting me because it "didn't taste good", but I don't think she even knew what was going on.

She never closed her eyes, (thank goodness) but the eerie thing was that it was like she was a zombie, and she was looking straight through me.  She never acts like that, even when I check her at 2 am, when she's the sleepiest of sleepy..

After about 10 minutes, she started to perk up, and I could tell she was out of the danger zone.  It was at that point that I checked her blood.  I hadn't checked it before, because I didn't have time.  Plus, I don't think I want to know how low she was.  After 10 minutes of getting the 24 gram, rapid acting glucose gel into her, she was just 70.  I would venture to guess that she had been in the 30's or 40's, but like I said, I don't want to know..... 

So, I held her for a while, we chatted, (she didn't remember coming down the stairs), and she eventually got back to her normal funny self.  She told me about the game, and what she did at her friend's house, and some other normal things.  I felt good about sending her off to bed, knowing that I would check her in less than 2 hours.

So off she went, and I finished my chick flick, not really watching it, still kind of stunned, thinking about the "what ifs".  When I checked her at 2 a.m., she was 349.  Ok, ok, I know....  So I went a little overboard on the carbs, but she scared the fire out of me, and I kind of went into that weird mother/adrenaline mode.  Yeah, that's it.  I'm blaming it on the adrenaline.

But, I corrected her, took a little off, just in case, and as she smiled her sweet little smile that she does to me every night as I'm sticking her and squeezing whatever blood I can get out of her finger, she cracked a little joke, and then off to dreamland she went.

Now, I'll continue to lay in the bed wide awake, all night, still thinking about the "what ifs" and listening to the sweet sound of my husband snoring like an annoying pack of geese, 6 inches from my head, as he dreams the night away in total peace and comfort.