Well, that was fun: last Thursday I ended up in the hospital overnight because my blood had turned to acid.

literally me

Here’s a handy timeline of all the bad that went down over the last two weeks, starting with the second blood test:

• Tuesday the 16th: have blood drawn again. Pee in a cup for good measure.
• Wednesday: get a phone call. “YOU’RE TOTES DYING! GET THEE TO A NUNNERY HOSPITAL!”
• Wednesday night: you got the beat(us)! Take these meds, which every single person with diabetes takes with no issue. They’re foolproof. Also, change everything about your life and never enjoy food again.
• Thursday: be sad. Dr. Awesome’s office calls and wants to see me on Friday. I’m probably in trouble.
• Friday: Dr. Awesome doesn’t want me to take the ER meds. He wants me on two drugs: the one suggested by Dr. ER, and a new experimental secret science drug that totally won’t lead to super powers. Instead of taking a whole series of new pills, Dr. Awesome prescribes me a combo pill that contains both the common drug (peanut butter) and the new one (jelly):

life has never been so convenient and unnecessary

I started taking the new drug on Friday. By Sunday night, I started to feel sick: crazy nauseous, full-body ache, throwing up, total brain fog. I figured it was just my body adjusting to my new lifestyle of no fun, because that’s a thing that actually happens. I was assured by the internet that yes, this sucks, but it will definitely get better.

It didn’t get better.

By Wednesday morning, I wasn’t able to keep anything down – all food and liquid was being expelled from my mouth in Exorcist proportions. I hadn’t been able to work all week, except for some emergency edits – and they took me forever, because I just could. not. think. Everything was so hard, both physically and mentally. I was in dire shape, but still assumed it was a keto flu that I’d eventually get over, and the PB&J pill would settle me down. I was taking the PB&J twice a day – 2x500mg to start, then ramped up to 2x1000mg after 5 days.

Thursday was scary. I don’t remember much of it. Ed had called Dr. Awesome’s office to find out if I was supposed be all dying like this, but didn’t get an answer so he called the BC Health Line to ask a nurse. Nurse said “hospital time!”, so he loaded me into the car and took me to the ER. I was seen almost right away, which means I was probably in really bad shape – again, I don’t remember much.

I spent the night in the hospital. They took all of my blood so many times I lost count, as well as checking my blood sugar every hour. The doctors were confused as to how peanut butter could cause all my symptoms, because it’s the drug everyone uses – and even better, when Ed explained I wasn’t just taking peanut butter but peanut butter AND jelly, there was more confusion: they’d never heard of jelly, let alone a PB&J pill. Clearly, it was the jelly causing all my problems.

My blood was tested, and they found I was supercalifragilisticketoacidosis: the medication had done such a good job of removing sugar from my blood that it turned it acidic, and I can only assume it was eating me from the inside out.

I was put on an IV to combat my dehydration, insulin to fix the lack of insulin in my body, and kept overnight so they could harvest my blood while I slept. Twice during the night I had to be woken up and given juice to drink, because my blood sugar was too low.

In the morning, Dr. Nice Shoes (he had nice shoes) came by to explain what happened: I was having a bad reaction to the jelly, so I should revert to just taking the peanut butter. After they were satisfied I was more or less stable, I could go home. In the meantime, here is some yucky breakfast and we will take more blood.

I fell asleep at some point, and woke up to my nurse and Dr. Nice Shoes standing over me: they weren’t going to leave until I started eating my yucky lunch. I still had absolutely no appetite at this point and what felt like bricks in my stomach, but Ed showed up with Diet Coke so that helped me choke a few bites down.

Dr. Nice Shoes suggested I fill my original prescription for peanut butter when I got home, and take it according to the original instructions. I should be feeling better in no time, and get back to doing whatever it is I do when I’m not busy dying. HOWEVER!

Dr. Awesome called me up and was all “wtf” “I know, right” “how we gon’ fix you”. He wanted to go in the other direction: don’t take the peanut butter at all, but just the new prescription for jelly only. I confessed my trepidation: I don’t ever want to feel like I did that day and other songs from Blood Sugar Sex Magik (pun actually not intended, but that worked out quite well didn’t it). I was worried about taking jelly, because the hospital is certain that it was the culprit for my near-death experience (2017 edition). Dr. Awesome disagreed!

What to do. I told Dr. Nice Shoes about Dr. Awesome’s advice and my subsequent fear of jelly. He understood the hesitation to prescribe me peanut butter because of my stupid heart, but stood by the “jelly = bad” and diagnosis left me with a couple days’ worth of peanut butter to take until my jelly came in. They gave me 1000mg of peanut butter with my lunch, and some to take home in a delightful doggy bag. I didn’t know when the jelly prescription was going to show up, so I halved the peanut butter dose to make it last longer.

Then I got sick again.

Saturday afternoon we had a late lunch with friends to celebrate Ed’s birthday. I started feeling really weird before we left the house, and by the time we got to the restaurant I was completely out of it. My insides felt all weird, I was nauseous, and I could feel myself getting dumber by the minute: my brain just couldn’t even. I had a hard time forming sentences, and had to pause mid-thought to remember what I was saying. IT SUCKED. What the fuck! I was supposed to be all better!

The lesson here is that I should never, ever doubt Dr. Awesome, who is called that for a reason. He was RIGHT: it wasn’t the jelly that was making me sick, but the peanut butter. Because I just have to be a special fucking snowflake, the drug that works on millions and millions of people with no side effects turns me into a drooling, acidic moron who can’t do food of any kind. Well that’s just fucking SUPER.

I stopped taking the peanut butter, and am now taking a small dose of jelly each day. I only have a trial supply, so if I’m still alive by the end of next week, I’ll tell Dr. Awesome and see if he can refill the jelly prescription for me. I’ve been off peanut butter for a day and a half, and I definitely feel better: not nauseous for the first time in a week, able to eat food and keep it down, and can do math again. I’m still pretty tired and weak like kittens, but I can see the end of the tunnel (and not in a morbid death way).

If I am going to have diabetes, I apparently am going to have the FUCK out of diabetes.