Our First Glucagon Experience

Dustin volunteered our family to be in the play "Rockwell", a musical about the life of Porter Rockwell. We had play practice every week from March until July. We met a lot of people in our community and made some friends over the months.

Dustin was Porter, and the girls and I were chorus members.

This is Jason.

He and his family were in the play with us and became our friends. Jason and his wife are blind and they have two kids, a boy age 10 and a girl age 8.

It wasn't until July that I found out why Jason is blind. During a break in between scenes, I checked Lainey's blood sugar. Jason's daughter was sitting next to us and said, "My dad has to do that!" I didn't believe her at first and asked their neighbor, who drove them to play practice, if Jason was diabetic. Sure enough! Jason, who is now 36 years old, was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes at the age of four. He went blind at age 19 because he refused to take care of his diabetes.

That same night, while all the cast members were listening to the director's notes, Jason's neighbor came to me and asked, "Your daughter is diabetic isn't she? Do you have sugar? Jason needs it." Luckily I had a juice box in my purse, but by the time I brought it over to Jason it was obvious he wouldn't be able to drink it. Jason was sweating, shaking, and incoherent. His son was shoving chocolate into his mouth saying, "Come on Dad. You need to eat," in a very panicked voice. I asked Jason's wife, who can't see what's going on, if she had his meter or his glucagon shot. She said no.

At that point, I yelled (in a calm voice Dustin later told me), "Dustin! Go home and get the glucagon!"

In a critical moment, I was unprepared. I was out of test strips, and I didn't have the glucagon with me. I had to learn this lesson the hard way unfortunately. I was an emotional wreck! Lainey was crying and I could not comfort her.

It took 10 minutes of waiting for Jason to get a glucagon shot. The paramedics were called, but by the time they got there, Jason's blood sugar had gone from 36 to 120 and he was responding. When asked if he knew where he was, Jason replied, "I'm at the church doing an awful play!" We all had to laugh at that.

This experience was very life changing for me, and I'm grateful that my first glucagon shot didn't have to be on my five year old.

Always be prepared!