Well, today didn’t work out quite as expected, alas I have had to miss out on the VMworld 2017 Europe Day 3 sessions and meetings 🙁

Was it something I … Ate?

It seems that something I ate last night didn’t agree with me.  As soon as I got back to the hotel I didn’t feel so well.  And so begins an awfully long night 🙁  Food poisoning/stomach bugs are nasty at the best of times.  However, when you’re an insulin-dependant diabetic, there are a few more things to worry about.

I wasn’t keeping anything down, not even sips of water.  So queue dehydration – the scourge of upset stomachs.  Then I started getting ketones in my blood – this can happen even to non-diabetics when they vomit, however for diabetics it can be particularly dangerous.

While normally I am able to deal with this, not being able to keep food or drink down meant that I was a little more cautious of going too high, or too low.  My worst fear would be having insulin and then not being able to keep the food down to counter-act it.  But – with sugars rising, I corrected anyway… and they didn’t come down.

 

Who’s (on) a Drip?

As per protocol for high sugars that don’t come down, I change the set of my Medtronic 640G Insulin pump… my sugars stayed up.  Not liking where this was going, feeling awfully sorry for myself (and a little sheepish), I called the hotel reception and asked for a doctor.

Long story short – he diagnosed gastroenteritis, and I was dehydrated.  He also recommended that I head into hospital.

Reluctantly, I had to agree with him.  I was in a foreign country, was in a room on my own, I had a stomach bug of some kind, and my sugars were going bananas.  It would have been negligent of me to ignore this advice.  If I’m honest, I was expecting this – I’ve been known to admit myself before for the same reason.

As I’m travelling with work, I called our travel people to update them on what was going on.  With their support I hopped into a taxi and went to hospital.

I was impressed how quickly I was seen.  I was in within minutes and before I knew what was happening, I was in a hospital gown, had bloods taken, X-Rays taken, and that sweet, sweet saline drip was started 🙂

The good news is that after saline, and some rest, and with my sugar levels normalised, the doctor discharged me 🙂

Home again, home again, jiggity jig!

OK – so it’s not quite home, but I’m now resting safely back at my hotel.  I was discharged after they pushed 2 bags of saline into me… I was a thirsty boy!

My stomach is settled and I’m resting for the rest of the day.  But, I’m pretty disappointed I missed out on today’s General Session and speaker sessions.  Also, I had some meetings lined up with some people in VMware, hopefully I can reschedule some of these until tomorrow.  Luckily my friend and colleague Bjarne is in the sessions today so not all is lost!

Bring on Day 4 of VMworld tomorrow!

tl;dr

Ate something dodgy, it chose to evacuate my system soon after. A trip to the hospital for some saline, back to the hotel by mid-afternoon!

Good news is that Day 4 is only around the corner!