I jerked awake, my body wracked by coughs. I peered at the clock. Only 4:00 a.m., I thought. What is going on? I wasn’t sick. Didn’t have a cold or anything. Just this weird cough.
I coughed and coughed unable to get the tickle out of my throat. Paul woke up beside me. “Honey, you okay?” he said, sitting up.
“I think so,” I managed to say. “I feel fine. I just can’t quit coughing.”
Paul got up to get me a glass of water. “Drink this,” he said, handing it to me. “Maybe it will help.” He climbed back into bed.
I drank the water, but it didn’t do much for the tickle in my throat. I felt awful keeping Paul awake. (He has type 2 diabetes and I hated to disturb his rest.)
Finally after about a half hour of listening to me cough, Paul said, “I’m going to go down and make a sandwich. I’m too awake now to sleep.”
“Okay,” I gasped. He got out of bed and walked out the bedroom door. Immediately I stopped coughing.
That’s odd, I thought. So glad it’s finally over. I lay back down hoping to get some rest.
About 15 minutes later Paul came back to bed. “Jess, I’m sure glad I got up when I did,” he said.
“Why?” I asked.
“When I got up from bed I felt a little dizzy so when I went downstairs to make my sandwich I decided to check my blood sugar. It was really low, only forty-six.”
“Paul,” I said, “you could have gone into diabetic shock!”
“Yeah, I guess I needed that sandwich pretty bad,” he said.
“And to think…if I hadn’t woken up when I did,” I said, shaking my head.
