I'm living inside of this Perfectly Wonderful World.

The body is sending up a flare saying, "No!

No!

Hey, I need help!

I'm on the edge of death!

If you do not help me during this diabetic low blood sugar- seizure!"

Get the picture?

The body's screaming for help.

It's saying, "I need sugar or I'm gonna die."

I mean, literally.

Join Deborah E, multi-award-winning singer, podcaster, and

speaker, who proves that being diagnosed with a life-changing illness as a child,

along with countless hospitalizations, and a family who told everyone she'd be dead

before she reached puberty, does not have to stand in the way of life well-lived.

The DiabeticReal podcast and the content of its website are presented

solely for educational purposes.

And the views and opinions expressed by guests are theirs alone.

They do not necessarily reflect that of the host of the podcast.

The content is not intended to substitute for professional medical diagnosis of

advice or treatment ongoing or otherwise.

Be sure to always seek the advice of your physician or other qualified

healthcare provider with any questions regarding your health care.

Well, let's see.

This is a story about rural doctors.

About little boys, or a little boy.

Well, you know, this story actually has a lot of moving pieces.

It's an easy story to tell, and yet it's a difficult story to tell.

So, how about I just start, and we'll see where this goes.

It has to do with a rural area.

It's a place where my husband and I moved many, many, many years ago.

Many decades ago, actually.

I think that rural areas are very beautiful, usually, uh, the place is

beautiful, the people are generally beautiful, as in, you know, nice

values, the simplistic living.

I like rural areas.

I mean, I grew up in a rural area.

I think they're nice places, generally speaking, and for anyone living in a

rural area, I mean, don't disrespect for anything that I'm about to

say in, in this podcast episode.

So, but this particular experience that I had is not really to the credit

of rural areas, but actually, in all fairness, it's not to the credit of one

particular person, and we'll get there.

eventually in this story, but, but it is something that, that, you know,

the purpose of this particular podcast episode, for those of you who may have

chronic illnesses or challenges or things like that, it is something to be

wary of and something to be aware of.

with your chronic illness.

So listen to the story and if it fits, great, you know, talk

it aside and be aware of it.

If it is something that you need to know, um, for your situation and if not, Hey,

just listen to the story and don't pay any attention at all as far as your own life.

But let's, uh, move forward.

So anyway, it's another one of those situations, another

case where I almost died.

And no, I'm not just saying that, uh, You know, as we learned last

episode, it's not just, I'm not just saying that to get attention because

I definitely don't need the attention.

I don't want the attention, I don't need the attention, and I'm

not doing it to get attention.

It really is a situation where it is a close call.

But anyway, no, seriously, I almost died because of the rural

component of where we lived.

And I say that a lot as far as almost dying because it's true.

A lot.

So, let's set the stage so we understand the situation.

We'd purchased some land way out west in Minnesota.

Part of it was an inheritance from family.

We'd scraped up money.

We were a young family, small kids.

We worked hard to pull it all together, all those earnings.

We worked with the county and purchased a modular home that was repossessed,

you know, kind of like a car.

That's how it works with, with modular homes.

And we worked with the state to file special paperwork to

get the land and so forth.

So we were really excited, you know, I mean, this was, we, you know, crossed

all our T's, dotted all our I's.

We worked really hard to make this work.

And this was like our dream home at this point.

It was Minnesota.

It was You know, Minnesota is a land of 10, 000 lakes, true,

but this was our little lake.

We now had eight acres of beautiful, peaceful, lush land in rural

Minnesota, starting our life together, uncomplicated, just our little

fairy tale, our fairy tale marriage.

It was like Goldilocks and the Three Bears, but this was the just right part.

It wasn't too hot.

It wasn't too cold.

It was just right.

Now for the event, the medical event.

As you know, listening to this podcast, I have diabetes, type 1 diabetes,

and I have that fun, yeah, that fun type 1 type, that type 1 type.

Boy, that's a tongue twister if you say that too many times in a row.

Not all type 1 diabetes or diabetics have the Kind that have the seizures, but it

seems that I'm blessed with that one.

I have the type that yes, if the blood sugar drops too low, I actually

have a seizure and I have the ability to have the tonic-clonic seizures.

Now, What that means is, you know, we refer to the tonic-clonic seizures.

I'm able to go completely unconscious.

There are several different types of seizures.

For instance, partial seizures.

That's where you sort of daze out.

Like you're starting, you're, you know, staring out into space.

And then there's tonic-clonic, tonic-clonic.

And that's when you're a hundred percent unconscious.

And because of that, your body just, for instance, just drops on the floor.

Or wherever you are.

Because You have no awareness, because you're unconscious, and

you're not aware of your surroundings.

You can't hold yourself up if you're completely unconscious, so you just

literally Of course, there's many other kinds of seizures as well, but

that's, that's a topic for another time.

Now, it just so happens, I'm also epileptic.

Let's not go there right now because that will only confuse matters as

far as what we're discussing today.

So, in other words, not only am I blessed with type 1 diabetes,

but I'm blessed with epilepsy.

Isn't that special?

That is so special.

But at this time in my life, when this event occurred, when we

lived in rural Minnesota, I did not know that I was epileptic.

And actually, in this situation, it was the diabetes that was causing the seizure.

And not the epilepsy.

So, whether I had known or not, it didn't matter because it was the low

blood sugar that caused the seizure.

So, again, it doesn't matter that we know we're epileptic, we don't

know we're epileptic, any of that.

So, for the story, we're just going to set that one aside.

Confused yet?

Alright.

How about we look at it from the body's point of view?

Okay?

So, we're going to look at it from the body.

When the blood sugar drops to, let's say 16.

Yes, that did happen to me one time actually, but I'll save that

for, you got it, another time.

Well, when type 1 diabetic body has a blood sugar that drops to,

say, 16, what do you think happens?

You got it, death.

When it goes past that point, it simply has gone too far, too low, and

there's no lower, and the body dies.

In the case of a type 1 diabetic that can have seizures, it is like a warning

mechanism that goes off before death.

The body is sending up a flare saying, "No!

No!

Hey, I need help!

I'm on the edge of death!

If you do not help me during this diabetic low blood sugar seizure!"

Get the picture?

The body is screaming for help but saying, "I need sugar or I'm gonna die.

I mean, literally!"

Yeah, the body is screaming for help, and that's what that seizure is.

So, regardless of epilepsy that day, that event, my blood sugar was low.

I needed help, as in, I needed sugar.

And my body was screaming out, sending up flares, asking for

help, in the form of sugar.

In other words, my body was screaming, I am type 1 diabetic

and I need help, please help me.

It didn't matter if I had blonde hair and was wearing a pink dress,

or if I had epilepsy, because that was not the issue at hand.

See what I mean?

Front and center.

Diabetic in need.

Okay, so the curtain parts.

We're at our house in the woods, by the lake.

I'm getting ready for church.

I go into a seizure, unconscious, from low blood sugar, as I just described here.

I even hit a head on the stove, and by the way, I dent the handle of the stove.

Yeah, ouch.

Ouch, big ouch, but I didn't feel it because of course I'm unconscious.

My husband calls the ambulance and pretty much he calls the ambulance

because he's worried about my head that head injury, you know I mean he can

treat the seizure you can treat the low blood sugar, but he's pretty he's

worried about this head injury now I mean you dent the stove with your head.

That's it's a little bit concerning anyway, so Now, let's pause for a moment

and let's talk about this hospital, right?

The ambulance is on the way out to pick me up, but let's, let's talk

about the hospital where they're headed once they pick me up.

It was a very tiny hospital.

It was smaller than many clinics in other city, in other cities.

The really sad issue was not the size, but something more than that.

A week or so before, maybe a few weeks, there had been a little boy who had

fallen between the bleachers at a sporting event at the local high school.

He was only four years old.

Sure, he hurt himself, but not to a point where it should have been more than a

night in the hospital and then go home.

This little boy never did get to go home with his family.

What was supposed to be some basic bruises ended up being a head injury

that killed him in that same hospital.

They did not examine him as thoroughly as they should have,

and this poor little child died.

Yes, that never should have happened.

It was in the news.

It was, it was awful.

It just, it should not have happened.

So now we come back to my situation as a type 1 diabetic.

Obviously, my husband Let the paramedics know that I was a type one diabetic.

And fortunately, the initial treatment was for that in the ambulance.

Or I wouldn't be here talking to you right now on the podcast.

But the actual initial treatment was, well, actually

it wasn't by the paramedics.

It was by my husband before the paramedics got there.

And as I said, the real reason for the ambulance was because I

hit my head in the head injury.

But It became a fiasco by the time I got to the hospital.

The doctor in the ER at the hospital, if you could call it an ER, swore up and

down that this was an epileptic seizure.

Now, I may have found out since then that I have epilepsy, but the point

is, as I said earlier, the event at the moment was a diabetic seizure

because of the low blood sugar.

And I know, we don't have to repeat that again, but it's a low blood sugar.

And a bigger point it was.

I didn't know this doctor from Adam, which means he didn't know me and

he didn't have my medical records.

Remember, we just moved here to a dream house in this particular area.

We'd just gotten there.

The doctors that I had were in another area.

With all the fun times with my diabetes, I'd had the pleasure

of knowing several medical staff in a city about 40 miles away.

The city was St.

Cloud, Minnesota.

It was a fair- sized city.

It wasn't Minneapolis.

It wasn't St.

Paul.

But it wasn't as rural as the little place where I was now.

The key thing was that there were Doctors in St.

Cloud who had my medical records and who knew me, they

could look up my information.

So, my husband begged the doctor in a small rural hospital to treat

me according to my type 1 diabetes.

And this doctor that we did not know, Refused.

I was like, who gives him the right?

My husband was finally able to convince him to call over

to the medical staff in St.

Cloud.

Now it gets interesting.

Everyone in this little hospital in this little rural town in

Minnesota could literally, and I mean literally, hear The doctor from St.

Cloud, screaming over the phone at the rural doctor, She is type 1 diabetic!

I dare say the doctor in St.

Cloud was even more frustrated than we were.

Fortunately, the beauty of type 1 diabetes is that once you get enough

sugar in the system, and especially once my brain cells came back online

with having had this disease almost all my life, Things start to balance.

I start to get involved in my own self care.

I don't tend to like others caring for me, especially when they would

rather argue with me about what disease I have or do not have, than

to treat me for the disease I have.

Or do not have.

And the beauty about being the patient is you can do this thing

called AMA, against medical advice.

Oh, I'm not here to say that I recommend it.

But versus being the next statistic, like that poor, dear, precious little

four-year-old boy that week before, no.

I decided to simply walk out of the hospital with my husband.

My blood sugar had adequately risen so that I was safe.

It seemed that if I had a concussion from hitting my head on the stove, I was okay.

So it was definitely time to leave that little hospital.

And sadly, even though we loved our little lake, We loved our little home.

Shortly thereafter, we left that little rural town and we moved

somewhere where people would listen when I said, I am a type 1 diabetic.

And you've been listening to DiabeticReal, and I'm your host, Deborah E.

Thank you for listening to this episode of DiabeticReal.

For more information about this podcast, as well as links and fun

stuff related to DiabeticReal, visit us on our website at diabeticreal.

com.

Now we'll listen as Deborah E.

herself.

sings one of her favorite songs.

The song is called Perfectly Wonderful World, written by Denny Martin

and Jaimee Paul, engineered by me, of course, your host, Michael, in

our Seaside Records studio here in lovely Los Angeles, California.

It was on the number one ReverbNation charts for over a

year and still charts very well.

So, have a pleasant moment and listen to Perfectly Wonderful World.

Yes, I'm living inside of this Perfectly Wonderful World.

Oh.

Mmm.