Story End

I have no choice. I'm terrified. I dial 911 and push talk, bringing my phone to my ear. One mile to the exit.

"This is 911, what is your emergency?" says a kind voice on the other end and I have no idea what to say.

"Yeah, my dad is diabetic, type one the juvenile one, and we think he is having a severe low blood sugar because he's acting weird and we're in the middle of nowhere in Indiana and I can't get him to check his blood sugar and I don't know what to do," rushes out of my mouth, my heart pounding.

"Is he being hostile? Where are you?"

"Uh, kind of," I say, thinking of how angry he was and how my sister had to manhandle him out of the truck. I look around and tell them the exit we are coming up to, just a little ways away, and the gas station I see there.
"I'll send an ambulance to that gas station. I'll stay on with you until the paramedics get there."

I thank them profusely, asking their distracting questions as my sister blinks the big truck to get off the highway. I turn on the blinker too, trying to convince my dad to check his blood sugar as well. I slow as we get up to the top of the exit, ready to follow the truck and my sister as she turns left.

"You know, I don't know what's going on and I'm just going to leave," my dad says after my pressuring him some more, and my heart jumps to my throat as he opens the door and I'm still moving.

"Oh my god! Dad!" I scream at him and lunge across the thankfully small car to pull the barely open door shut. "My dad is trying to get out of my car!" I say to the paramedics, then to my dad, "What are you doing?!" I finally come to the a stop at the top of the exit, one arm slung across at his door, fighting him for control. "Dad, no!" I slam the lock on, hoping he is disoriented enough to not know to open it. I hit the gas and turn left, also hoping the speed will make him think twice about getting out of a moving vehicle.

Somehow I get across the bridge and into the parking lot next to the big yellow truck, sighing with relief as my sister rejoins me. But he is still hostile and wants out of that tiny red car.

"Just let me out! I don't know what I am doing here!" He gets the door open but thankfully my sister is there. I grab his shoulder, trying to hold him in, and she struggles with him, blocking the door with her body. "Fine!" he gives up with a heaving sigh, once again very child-like in nature.

"Did you get him to check his blood sugar?" my sister asks me, still standing between him and the freedom of a foreign state.

I shake my head, working up the courage on what to say next. "I called mom and his sister and his mom to try and see if they could convince him to check it, but they didn't answer so I called 911. I just didn't have any choices left and it was all I could think of!" I ramble on, having never called 911 before and just plain terrified about my dad.

"Good choice," she says, "I bet they will be here soon." She turns her attention to dad, and somehow the two of us together convince him to check his blood sugar. It was 28, way too incredibly low as normal was about 80, and that was after he took the two glucose tabs.

Soon we hear the sirens and a white ambulance drives into the parking lot. Nice men surround us and a kind older man asks us questions. We got dad to eat a banana and slowly he is coming out of his haze, finally not in a hallucinatory mindset. The paramedics take another blood test, only on their machines, and my dad answers their questions coherently.

"What is your birthday?"

"February 8th, 1961."

"What year is it?"

"2009."

"Where do you live?"

He rattles off our address, obviously coming up. They look satisfied with his answers and check out his test. Already his blood sugar is coming up, about 50. Still low, but a much safer low. My dad is back, the scary, laughing, maniacal, lost in la-la land dad gone. He's quiet and subdued now, refusing a ride in to the local hospital since he is back in a safe range, and the paramedic tells us of a great breakfast place just a few exits down the highway. We thank them and go on our way, dad still in with me and my sister fighting with the huge truck.

We reach the restaurant and have a great big breakfast, knowing that food is the best thing now that he is out of the danger zone. We talk about it, my sister and I both agreeing with each other about being terrified, but none of us sure why it happened.

"I don't understand, I ate snacks while driving and took insulin for them, but I never took too much," my dad says around a bite of sausage gravy and biscuits, all of us thinking about the previous twelve hours.

"Yeah, you're always really good with how much to take," my sister says, mixing together ketchup and eggs with her hash browns. The things they learn in the South.

I grimace at her mix and turn to my french toast, ravenous after nothing but road food lately. We had stopped the night before around midnight at a convenience store and stocked up on chips and candy and pop...

"Oh, you know what I bet it was?" my dad pipes up and I bring myself out of the memories of the night before. "Those energy things we had!"

And I remember, we had each had an extra strength five hour energy shot at the gas station, chugging down the nasty tasting stuff to get a couple more hours on the road. "You know, I bet you are right!" I agree, everything falling in to place.

"I bet it boosted my metabolism so when I took the insulin for all the snacks, it made me go even lower! I bet that was it!" my dad exclaims, and we all know that it must be true, for it is the only thing that makes sense. We talk about it some more, my dad apologizing for being so scary silly and delirious. But we understand that it wasn't him, it was the diabetes.

We call my mom, who answers this time now that it is closer to 10 AM. We assure her that everything is fine now, and she says that we did everything right, even the calling 911. She says we probably saved his life; my sister noticing something was wrong and me waking him up and getting him to eat the glucose tabs. We each had a hand in saving my dad's life, and our knowledge of our dad's illness was probably our greatest ally of the day.

After some fancy steering of the big yellow moving truck in the packed restaurant parking lot, we get back on the road to go home, only half way there. My sister and I take turns riding with my dad, extra vigilant of his blood sugar and food intake. We make it home late the next night, still a little shaken from our ordeal. We go on to tell our story, and my dad steers clear of those energy shots.



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