Booby Trapped High GI Pie.

A funny thing happened last week. Tim and I  went to Christchurch for his sister's 50th birthday.
Tim was to help cook with his other sister, as his contribution to the evening helping her make curries for dinner. 
I got to have some time off with my sister and children for the day. A luxury for me as we live at opposite ends of NZ.

Tim and Jane went off grocery shopping for the evening meal and picked up a pie for lunch, normally okay for his low GI diet . After eating half the pie he wasn't feeling that flash so had a sit down on the couch, hoping it would pass, funny thing he woke 3 hrs later to find curries all made, and his sister very scared. Jane had gone to look in on Tim to find him sound asleep sitting upright on the couch, so still and pale she didn't know if he was dead or alive she kept cooking hoping he was just asleep. Fortunately he was just asleep, but when he has as episode of Dumping Syndrome caused from eating the wrong food, the sleep he has is very scary for those around him.. I often joke you could drive a truck past and it wouldn't wake him.Jane was relieved to have him awake and therefore alive.

Dumping Syndrome is a condition that happens when Tim eats high GI food, because he has no stomach, as a result of cancer surgery, food passes directly into his small intestine, which starts absorbing whatever he has eaten. The small intestine absorbs sugars and if there is too much present Tim becomes hyper glycemic, his brain sends all available blood to his gut to process the sugars, this in turn causes the rest of his body to shut down sending him into a very deep sleep that usually lasts around three hours.This is a really unpleasant painful experience for Tim and scary for others around him, and therefore to be avoided at all cost.

I think that it was probably the white flours or thickeners in the pie that would have tipped him up, as these are readily absorbed. Most pies are high in protein and fat and usually balance any high processed carbohydrates and sugars. Clearly all pies are not necessarily Tim friendly. Any future thoughts on having a pie for lunch will be treated like Russian roulette.