AMPALAYA & ME

Last Saturday, my friends (who are also family) went up to Mapayao village to attend the closing ceremonies of the Children's Vacation Bible School that was held there. There were 90 children listed and a few more. It was great to see so many children being taught about the Lord Jesus that early in their life.

On that Sunday morning, at breakfast, I did not have the usual cooked rice, but I did eat a lot of cooked ampalaya leaves. Everybody actually shoved all the leaves to my plate telling me that it's good for me. Days before, I have been roving the net like crazy trying to find out natural means to lower blood sugar and of course ampalaya was there, as well as cinnamon and other things. So I have been taking my coffee, tea, etc. with some cinnamon powder. I've also been acting like ampalaya is the best vegetable in the world, what with eating them with almost every meal I take.

That morning, as I was looking at the children rehearsing for their closing program, I started to perspire like crazy, feel dizzy, my hands shaking, my heart beating like in a nightmare, my vision was blurring, and somebody was asking me what I think about the sequence of the program and I don't think I was able to give her a helpful answer because I was concentrating on not losing it.. you know, the consciousness. I was slumping, bending over my seat and it's good my aunt noticed it and asked me what's wrong. I had difficulty concentrating and I can' t give a coherent answer. They found my husband (who's been everywhere taking pictures) and I asked him to go find me a chocolate or any sweet candy. That was a village and the nearest sari-sari store was a good 10-15 minutes away by foot. I thought I was really really going to go that moment; the weakness was just like some kind of darkness that is enveloping me and literally chasing the day light out of me. My aunt was getting panicky by the minute, asking me what else can be done while waiting for my husband to come back with the chocolates. She asked me what's really wrong, and I told her I suspect my blood sugar is dropping too low and when I told her that, it seems like a light was turned on in my mind! SUGAR! There must be tons of sugar in the kitchen. She ran to the kitchen and came back with half a cup of sugar but she was not very willing to give it to me (because I just told her at breakfast that diabetes means too much sugar in the blood and now why did I send her to get a cup of sugar) until I told her it's the only thing that can help me at that moment. She just had to trust me. I found out you cannot just spoon sugar into your mouth and try to swallow it, so I had to dilute it with water. A quarter of an hour later, I felt like I'm the healthiest person alive. Thank God.

The chocolate came half an hour too late... so I guess I should take a bar of toblerone with me anywhere I go, just in case, shouldn't I? :-)

Lesson? I guess I have to take this diabetes thing seriously and watch what I eat. It's not just because they said ampalaya is good for lowering blood sugar, I'll just go ahead and eat them without care. Of course, the articles in the internet instruct you to consult your doctor first before you try medicating yourself with the natural remedies and to go at it gradually, to kind of let the body do what it needs to do to adjust to the elements or something. But as it is, moderation has never been my strong suit. I ate too much of all these sugar-lowering foods (not to mention that I'm on medication that stimulates sugar utilization in the body) that my blood sugar dropped too low.

So that's my first hypoglycaemic experience and I hope the last. As usual, I had to learn my lesson first hand...

Picture copied from http://www.philippineherbalmedicine.org/ampalaya.htm