It’s 7.25pm on Sunday evening. I am battle-scarred from a hypo that hit me like a ten tonne truck. It was 6 hours ago now, but I am still foggy and so fatigued.

We were out – at our local shops picking up a few things. All of a sudden, I felt like I was going to fall over. One of my legs gave way, I was dizzy and I couldn’t find the words I needed. Focusing hard, I looked at the kid and said ‘We need to get out of here.’ I passed her my phone and she called Aaron who was in another shop nearby, asking him to come and find us.

Where had this come from? My CGM started wailing at the moment that Aaron joined us. But when I looked over the previous few hours, I could see that I had been sitting around 4mmol/l for the whole time. Until I dipped – suddenly – and it seemed the CGM trace took a little while to catch up. The wailing continued as I gulped back orange juice and groped for my pump to silence the alarm.

It was almost fifteen minutes later before I was ready to move. As I sat there, I very consciously started to notice the fuzziness in my head, the overwhelming and all-encompassing exhaustion hit. My eyelids began to droop and my eyes were having trouble focusing, my hair was wet at my neck making me shiver, and my hands were shaking a little. The noises around me sounded like they were coming through a tunnel – everything echoed, but sounded muted and fluffy.

Eventually, we got up and got home and I went straight to bed. I took off my shoes, lay down, and was shivering as I fell asleep, almost instantly. And I slept – a deep, heavy, dreamless sleep. Two hours later I woke up and was ready to move again – slowly and gingerly at first.

And now. Six hours later. I am sitting on the couch, and in between writing I stare out the front window onto our street. It’s a gorgeous night – warm, but not too warm, with a gorgeous cool breeze blowing through our open front door. I hear the leaves flutter in the trees in the garden, people walk by, chatting to each other, and the folk across the road are having a band rehearsal. It’s peaceful; it’s Sunday night and I’m starting to think of the week ahead.

And in my thoughts about school lunches, and work schedules, and everything else, I have another thought. I don’t have it often, but when I do, it’s always the same.

I feel a pull at the bottom of my stomach.

My breath catches in my throat.

Tears spring to my eyes.

I wish I didn’t have diabetes.