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My dad has diabetes. He has lived with it for about 20 years now, give or take a few years.

He did something wrong tonight (too much of the wrong insulin) and his blood sugar went too low. When this happens, he acts like he's drunk, but tonight he was completely insane. My mom and I helped him downstairs to check his blood and give him food. We were giving him the glucose tablets but it wasn't helping. The whole time he was just yelling and screaming. My mom yelled at him to be quiet - the neighbors might call the police.

Mom was yelling at him, "What did you shoot?? Which insulin did you shoot??"

She was almost crying as she pleaded with him to tell her. "I'm going to call the ambulance!!" she threatened. She and I both knew it wouldn't do any good. All they could do for him was what we were already doing.

I've never seen my mom on the verge of tears when my dad was low. I knew it must have been bad if she was so upset. I knew he must have been dying and it scared me. I almost started crying as I dragged my brother out of bed and pulled him down the stairs to help us.

Dad started passing out in his chair and mom slapped him really hard on the arm to wake him up. It happened several times. He had a hand print on his shoulder for the rest of the night. He always said people die when they lose consciousness like that. "Don't let me pass out," he always said.

We got the blood meter working and poked his finger to get a blood sample. The meter gave us a blood sugar reading of 40 (don't know the units of measurement). He's supposed to be around 100. Take into consideration that we had already given him 5 glucose tablets, and the truth gets scary. He must have been around 20 when my mom first realized he was low.

We gave him more strawberries and finally mom resorted to pure sugar. She knew this could possibly make him go too high, but all that mattered at this moment was that it would keep him alive. The real sugar came through for us.

Now we have our dad back, but I'm still freaked out. I love my dad.

While we're at it:

I love my mom.

I love my brother.

I love you all.

If I somehow die suddenly, just know that I love, even though I might not say it (I know, I should).