Reclining in her seat at the cinema on a Sunday afternoon, Eleanor Noyce stuck a straw into the Pepsi Max she had ordered and took a sip, hoping to switch off her brain for a couple of hours. She always orders a diet drink because she is a type 1 diabetic and cannot have the 'full-fat' version.
Then something unexpected happened. Within 10 minutes, her blood sugar had shot up to dangerous levels. Her phone buzzed with a notification from her monitor that her blood sugar was out of range and skyrocketing quickly. She knew instantly what had happened: the staff had given her the wrong drink.
Despite ordering Pepsi Max and double-checking with the server, she had been given the sugary version. She had noticed the server place her glass underneath the generic Pepsi tap but decided to put faith in her, assuming it had been labelled wrong. Even though the server was clearly in the wrong, Noyce blamed herself.
A simple mistake with serious consequences
If Noyce drinks a sugary drink, it sends her blood sugar sky high. Her body cannot automatically regulate her blood glucose; she has to do this manually. A simple mistake can land her in hospital if it results in ketoacidosis, which happens when there is so much sugar in the bloodstream that it starts to produce acid, slowly poisoning the body.
When she was first diagnosed in 2015, she was on the cusp of a coma and told she was lucky to be alive. At its very worst, the condition kills people. Incidents like this can be deadly.
There are other anxieties around going to the cinema as a type 1 diabetic. A few years ago, Noyce was trying to subtly administer insulin using her diabetes monitor (a repurposed phone connected to her pump via Bluetooth) inside the cinema when she was shouted at by an unsuspecting member of the public. The woman, sitting behind her, clearly thought Noyce was using her phone. Even after the film finished, she was aggressive with her.
Fear of checking blood sugar in public
Noyce held her tongue that time too, not explaining that she had a legitimate medical reason for using the device. Instead, she sat there and cried, swiftly putting her sunglasses on so no one would see her tears. This experience now stays with her whenever she visits the cinema. She has become incredibly cautious about checking her blood sugar for fear of inconveniencing the people around her, who cannot see the pump she wears in the dark, nor the blood glucose monitor on her arm. She only does so if she can feel herself dropping low or spiking high, and she is wary about giving herself injections for the same reason.
That made the situation even more dangerous, as she might have tried to ignore it or not noticed in the dark. On the day she was given a full-fat Pepsi, she wanted to enjoy the cinema, which has become a safe place for her to escape. Instead, she sat and worried while watching the film, as she started to feel increasingly unwell. Eventually, she dashed out and frantically administered some extra insulin.
She had not eaten anything else, so she knew it was the drink. It is an intuition hard-wired into every single type 1 diabetic, she says; they are constantly in survival mode, waiting for something to catch them out and send them flying, even when they do not consent to it. Luckily the medicine worked in time, and she started to feel better. But it took her a few hours and disrupted her sleep, leaving her a zombie at work the next day.
Complaint and response
Once the credits rolled, Noyce's boyfriend wanted to speak to the staff and lodge a proper complaint. She did not want to cause a fuss, so she pleaded with him to leave it alone. She was exhausted, riding down the high she had thankfully made it through without passing out. A spike and a crash like this make her feel fatigued, like every ounce of energy has been drained from her system. In the moment, she feels confused, which does not help when she is trying to act rationally and fix a spiralling medical situation. If she is hungry when it hits, she cannot eat anything until it is fixed.
The experience stayed with her, so a few days later she sent an email of complaint, not wanting it to happen to anyone else, but as she hit send, she felt awful.
A spokesperson for Diabetes UK told Metro that if you consume a sugary drink you were not expecting to, you will need to start off by checking your levels more frequently. They said: 'If your blood sugar levels are high, follow your high blood sugar level management plan; you may need to give a correction dose of insulin. Speak to your healthcare team if you're not sure how to manage high blood sugar levels.'
'If your blood sugar levels are high, you should try to drink plenty of water or other sugar-free fluids to prevent dehydration. High blood sugar levels can lead to diabetic ketoacidosis (DKA). If you have any symptoms of DKA, which include feeling or being sick, stomach pain, feeling tired, sleepy or confused, or breathing more deeply than normal, get urgent medical help.'
Noyce knew they probably would not understand, and while they were hugely sympathetic in the end, she was offered two free tickets as an apology. They also made sure each staff member was properly briefed, so it would not happen again. While she appreciates the gesture as a peace offering, she does not care about a free trip to the cinema. She cares about her needs being taken seriously in what can be a life or death situation.
This is not the first time this has happened to her; she has been served sugary drinks in pubs and restaurants before, and she fears it will continue to happen. Any institution would recoil in horror at the prospect of serving a person with allergies the thing that triggers a reaction for them, but the response is never the same for type 1 diabetics.
A matter of life and death
Ordering a decaf latte or a Diet Coke might seem like a lifestyle choice, but in the wrong circumstances, ingesting sugar can be perilous for her; at worst, deadly. What she wishes people would understand is that, like many others who might either be pregnant or on medications that limit caffeine intake, she does not have a choice in this. She cannot afford to be at the receiving end of someone else's mistake; for you, it might be a tired afternoon, a simple mishap. But for her, it can be the difference between life and death.
And she needs venues to take it that seriously.
