Low Blood Sugar Incident in Iceland with my Brother

In 2015 my brother and I traveled to Iceland. Well actually, my friend Zandra and I planned a trip to Iceland. She could only stay a week and I wanted to stay for two weeks. My brother came out for my second week there. During my second week there, I had an extreme low blood sugar event. Thankfully my brother was there and able to help me.

During my second week in Iceland my brother and I drove from the capitol, Reykjavik to Ísafjörður, a part of the Westfjords region of northwest Iceland. We went there because the internet told us that was the only place where we could go kayaking year-round. We were there in November, so it was quite cold, not the normal time to want to kayak. But the two of us love being active in all sorts of weather and wanted to go kayaking…. so Ísafjörður.

Waking up

Our first morning in Ísafjörður I woke up with very low blood sugar. We both didn’t realize it right away. My brother had woken up and gotten out of bed before I did. He was being nice and letting me sleep in for a little bit. After about 15 minutes of my brother being up and ready, he decided that it was time for me to get up. He started saying my name out loud, then saying it louder and louder. I was not budging, just stayed sleeping. Eventually I did make a groan but it still wasn’t much.

Starting to Worry

In the back of his mind, he was worried because of a story I told him the day before about a low blood sugar number incident. My brother was starting to think this situation was similar. He said that “the parallels between her story and this morning were too much for me to not be thinking of, and it created a growing sense of panic.”

When I asked my brother about this event months after the fact, he couldn’t remember the exact exchanges we had during this time. All he could remember, was that my reactions to him (or lack thereof) was enough to make him worry that my blood sugar number was dangerously low.

There were some parts of this that I actually remember. My brother had realized that I needed some sugar and kept trying to give me a capri-sun. I did not want a juice box and he was making me angry by continuing to ask me to drink one. He would come to one side of the bed and offer me the juice. I would scream “No!” and roll over to the other side of the bed. Elliot would then walk over to the other side of bed and try to give me the juice box again, and I would respond in the same way.  

Getting me to Drink a Capri-Sun

His first attempt to get me to drink some fast-acting carbs wasn’t working. In addition to getting me to drink some juice, he also tried to get me to check my blood sugar number. At this time, I was using a blood glucose meter, and not using a continuous glucose monitor. I reacted the same way to him asking me to check my blood sugar number as I was about him trying to get me to have a capri-sun.

I was acting like a child, and my brother eventually started treating me like a child. He was getting frustrated with me, but he knew that he couldn’t show me those feelings. He didn’t know what to do exactly, but knew that being calm was the best start. Elliot had remembered that earlier in our trip I brought up the capri-sun flavors and illustrations of monsters on the front of the pouch. Instead of handing me a juice pouch and asking me to drink it, he changed tactics. He brought up the flavors and the fun monsters on the pouch.

I remember talking about how much I liked the silly looking monsters before this time, and when he mentioned the monsters, I sat up in bed. I grabbed the pouch and cried “I love monsters!”

I Finally Drink the Juice

I grabbed the juice box and then laid back down in bed to drink it. When I was almost done with the juice box, I flipped it upside down to try and get all of the liquid out of the pouch. At the time, my low-blood sugar brain didn’t realize that this is the wrong way to consume a capri-sun. Luckily, my brother was watching me and told me to turn the juice box back over or I would spill it all over the bed. After some time, and my brothers help, I successfully finished the juice.

At this point I began to realize what was happening. It wasn’t until I drank the juice that I started to understand that my blood sugar was low. I sat up in bed and checked my blood sugar number. It was 27, and for those of you who don’t know anything about blood sugar numbers, that is dangerously low! I should not have been coherent. When I saw what the number was, I tried to hide it from my brother. I didn’t want him to see how low it was.

I thought I was being sneaky, but there was no way I could have actually been sneaky. My brother noticed what I was doing and asked me what my number was. I told him and he started giving me some snacks to help the juice get my number up.

It took about 5-10 minutes for my behavior to start going back to “normal”. I slowly started to get up and get dressed and ready for the day. My brother and I enjoyed a complimentary hotel breakfast.

What Happened Afterward

After a day or two we discussed what happened, how terrifying it was, and the best way forward. After this my brother and I both took special care to make sure that I didn’t go to sleep without eating a snack. I also put on a continuous glucose monitor, so this event would be easier to detect and prevent in the future. This type of low blood sugar event didn’t happen again on this trip, and hasn’t happened again since (I’m writing this at the very end of 2024).  

I talked to my doctor about it when I came back and was told that it is common to have an extreme low blood sugar once every 5-10 years. That I was doing everything I could have done, and it was good that I started making extra precautions before bed and when I was traveling. (Please talk to your doctor about this if you have questions or has happened to you or someone you love. Read my disclaimer).

Thank You Elliot

I am incredibly thankful to my brother. He saved my life. If he wasn’t there and wasn’t patient and resourceful, I don’t know what would have happened. Since this time, I’ve shared those I travel with that when I’m low, telling me to drink a juice will not work. It’s best to make me think it was my idea, or make it a challenge.  

My brother said the following, “This event added a new level of respect for my sister because these are things that are in her mind all the time because she has diabetes. I generally don’t think too much of the consequences of having diabetes because I haven’t seen them until that night. My sister is aware of them all the time and has to constantly live with added worries I never have to, which makes how happy a person she is most of the time all the more impressive.”

Read more about what my brother has to say about traveling with a type 1 diabetic in my blog post Interview with my Brother – Traveling with a Diabetic.

(Writing the first draft of this post, I was okay, emotionally speaking. But rereading the very end, what my brother said about it made me cry. Having type 1 diabetes is something that I’ve never liked to dwell on. It is such a constant and difficult part of my life, thinking about it all the time is a lot. Sometimes it can be too much. Luckily for me I have the means, resources, and support to take care of myself. But even when you have the means, doesn’t make the emotional side of living with a disability easy.)