If anyone who loved me read this article, it would probably make them worry about me going anywhere by myself, ever again. This story isn’t the most dangerous example, but it’s a good illustration of compound risk in Type 1 Diabetes (T1D) that we need to name and talk about.

The other day, I had to drive about 30 minutes from where I live into San Francisco for an event. Normally, this is something I complete start to finish, with T1D, with no problem. I’ve got a really good handle on T1D most days, but as we all know, then there are those other days that sneak up me — and it’s not until I’m in the middle of that perfect storm do I remember how risky it can be. It’s in that moment that I remember, viscerally in my body, that I’m walking a tightrope.

Right before I hopped in the car, I took a dose of insulin to curb a blood sugar rise I saw on my Continuous Glucose Monitor (CGM). However, as I neared my event about 30 minutes later, I could tell my blood sugar was starting to crash.And then, the perfect storm started to brew. I remembered the glass of wine I had had the night before, making me a bit more sensitive to insulin. I had also just put in a new CGM sensor, so a question mark lingered in my mind about it’s accuracy. Because of a family emergency in the morning, I had packed a backup blood sugar meter.

I grabbed a Fruit Leather from my car’s console and ate it, hoping it would be enough. It was my last fruit leather on-hand. I was overdue to stock back up on my low supplies.

Part of me wanted to keep circling for a parking spot, get to the workshop on time, and continue treating my low there. But luckily, my brain recognized the priorities here – getting to my workshop on time wasn’t worth an accident because my senses were shaky. I pulled over, found some strawberries in my lunch, and waited out my low. The workshop facilitator was totally supportive that I had taken the time to take care of myself.

As you can see, there were a pile-up of risk factors that make a low blood sugar extra risky. A low blood sugar that on one day is no problem to treat, suddenly became the recipe for a perfect storm, with a fender bender as one of the potential risks.

I’m not writing this article to scare anyone, to harp on the dangers of T1D, or to suggest that we, as people with T1D, aren’t fit to drive. I’m writing this article to put a name to the “T1D Perfect Storm”, when multiple individual factors unexpectedly pile-up and exponentially increase risk. Each factor might not have been too bad on its own, but when stacked together, they create a much riskier scenario.

This image was adopted from the Japanese concept of Ikigai.

A natural way humans learn is through difficulty. A toddler learning to walk must fall down several times in order to learn how to balance. In our adult worlds, we often are shamed for “failure”. But this is a natural way that humans learn. “Failure” is a beautiful, clear, teacher that I like to call a “learning lesson”. If we can set aside any guilt or shame we feel, we can do a Look-Back on these moments, understanding what led to them and what could be changed in the future. For me, a Look-Back has two parts.