Robbie had no idea how it had happened. One moment he was mucking about in English, turning his exam timetable into a paper airplane (a completely worthwhile thing to do with his time, despite what Mr McQueen said) and the next he was on the other side of the classroom, kneeling next to his unconscious brother.

"Jason? Jason can you hear me?" Mr McQueen asked, trying to bring him round, but he lay unresponsive on the floor. "Someone call 999," he called over his shoulder, smiling in thanks as Ruby began dialling, leaving the noisy classroom in favour of the deserted corridors to make the call. John-Paul turned back to Jason, moving his student into the recovery position.

"He's diabetic isn't he?" John-Paul asked Robbie, who only nodded, eyes on his twin brother, willing him to wake up. "Do you know where his insulin is, he may need it,"

"No don't," Robbie said instantly, snatching the insulin kit from a student who had taken it from Jason's bag. "We need to check his blood glucose levels first, if they're too low then he'll need some sugar, not the insulin." John-Paul nodded, letting Robbie open the kit and get what he needed ready, trusting him to know what to do.

"The ambulance should be here soon," Ruby said, rushing back into the classroom. "And Tasha's gone to get the nurse."

"Thanks Ruby," John-Paul said, trying to stay calm. The rest of the class had long since left their seats and were slowly circling Jason, trying to catch a glimpse, he was pretty sure he spotted a camera phone whip out. "Everyone out," he commandeered, herding everyone bar Robbie and Ruby into the hallway, where he quickly ran into the nurse, who was being closely followed by Patrick Blake.

"What's going on?" He asked, a look of worry passing over his face at the chaos in front of him and from the troubled atmosphere from the class.

"Jason Roscoe's just collapsed. He's type 1 diabetic so we think it may be something related, but there's an ambulance on it's way now. I just needed to move this lot out,"

"I'll get them to an empty classroom, you get stay here," Patrick said, already directing the class away from the scene and John-Paul moved back into the classroom. The nurse was crouched at Jason's head whilst Ruby and Robbie were sat by his side, Robbie taking his brother's blood sugar, refusing to let the nurse take over.

"His blood sugars are way too high," he said once the sample had been taken. "It shouldn't be anywhere near that level," Before he could begin measuring out the insulin, the whine of the ambulance sirens wailed into the area.

"Ruby, go to the playground and bring them here," John-Paul directed, nodding in thanks as she jumped up and ran past.

The paramedics soon arrived in the English room, stretcher held between them. John-Paul explained the situation as best as he could, with the occasional interruption from Robbie or Ruby. Robbie showed them Jason's blood sugar level and the two paramedics shared a short but worried look.

"Jason seems to have gone into diabetic ketoacidosis," one of the paramedics began explaining whilst the other constructed the stretcher. "We'll have to take further tests to make sure but it seems the most likely thing,"

After lifting Jason onto the stretcher, the two paramedics wheeled him out of the room. "I'll call your mum and let her know what's happened," John-Paul told Robbie as he made to leave the room. Robbie nodded his head in thanks before turning to get to the ambulance. "Ruby go find Mr Blake and update him please. Tell him I'm contacting the Roscoe's and that I'll keep him updated."

The frizzy hair girl nodded, turning to leave. "He will be all right won't he?" she asked in a small voice.

"He's in good hands, the doctors will know what they're doing," John-Paul finally said, there was no point lying to her, she'd be able to tell easily enough. The answer seemed good enough for Ruby as she quickly left the room, going in the direction of the rest of the class. Hearing the sirens of the ambulance start up again, John-Paul went to his laptop to bring up the contact information of Sandy Roscoe. He had a difficult phone call to make.

HOHOHOHO

"Boys are you here?" Sandy cried running into the garage where her three eldest were working quietly. She had been able to leave work easily once she had found out what had happened to Jason and had pulled into the garage on the way to the hospital.

"Are you okay mum?" Joe asked, sharing a concerned look with the others.

"It's Jason, he collapsed at school and they've brought him to the hospital," she explained quickly, trying to hold back the tears.

"What? Is he okay?"

"I don't know, I'm on my way there now but I wanted to let you all know first."

"We'll go with you," Freddie said, already moving to put the tool box away.

"But the garage,"

"The garage ain't important," Joe told her. "I'll call Lindsey up now, see if she knows anything. You go ahead, we'll close up and meet you there." Thanking them, Sandy rushed back to the car and pulled out of the driveway.

The three brothers worked quickly, calling up people who were due to pick up their cars and explaining to them that the garage was now closed whilst finishing off other small tasks. Not a word was said between them until they had piled into the car and were making their way to the hospital.

"He'll be okay right?" Ziggy asked as Joe explained the situation to Lindsey over the phone.

"Course he will," Freddie replied, overtaking another car sharply. "Jase is a fighter,"

"Lindsey said that she hasn't heard anything about it, but it isn't really her department," Joe said once he'd hung up. "She's going to try and find him, but with him being family it may not work, emotional attachment and all,"

"What do you reckon it is? Collapsing isn't exactly a regular occurrence."

"I don't know Zig," Joe said, trying not to snap. The rest of the car journey was spent in silence, each brother trying not to imagine the worst and failing. Once they arrived at the hospital, they quickly pulled in and hurried to the entrance.

"We're looking for Jason Roscoe," Joe told the receptionist, trying to remain calm. "He was brought in bout half an hour ago,"

"May I ask what relation you are,"

"Brothers, we're his brothers."

The receptionist turned to her computer, typing in the necessary information and scrolling through some text.
"Joe?" Lindsey's voice caught their attention. She hurried to the desk. "I'll take them Hetty, thank you though," She directed the three into the main area of the hospital, leading them through the winding corridors.

"Do you know what's up with him yet?" Freddie spoke up, asking the question that was on the others minds.

"The paramedics that brought him in think it may be diabetic ketoacidosis, but their doing a urine test now to make sure."

"Ketoacidosis? I thought you only got that if you didn't take your insulin."
"That can be one cause," Lindsey said as they entered a small hallway. Chairs were dotted around, and both Robbie and Sandy sat next to each other outside one of the rooms. "But it can also be caused if he was ill or hasn't eaten properly." The four took the closest seats, trying to not look into the room where Jason was. They all failed and winced as they saw him being hooked up to various machines.

The family sat in a tense silence for a few moments before a doctor emerged from the hospital room. "As you are probably aware, we're fairly sure that Jason is suffering from ketoacidosis which has been pretty much confirmed by his temperature, pulse and blood pressure. The urine test that we have conducted will let us see how severe it is by the number of ketones present."

"Is he okay though?" Joe snapped, shooting an apologetic look over at Lindsey as she tightened his hand in warning.

"Luckily Jason was brought in quite early on or it could have been a lot worse. We're bringing his insulin levels up so his blood sugar will decrease and he's been put on a drip as he was very dehydrated, but we've managed to avoid him falling him into a coma. He's sleeping at the moment and we would like to keep him overnight."

Sandy nodded, trying to keep her full attention on the doctor and what he was telling her, instead of letting it wander into the 'what ifs' of the situation.

"We will also be enquiring as to why Jason's glucose levels were that high, but is there anything you can think of Ms. Roscoe that could shed some light on the situation?"

Sandy shook her head, trying to think back on the past few days. "I'm afraid not doctor,"

"No worries," the doctor said smiling slightly. "It was a long stretch. I'll give you and your family some time alone, although I must ask that only a few people go in the room at once. The ketoacidosis may have been caused by some sort of infection and too many people at once may leave him vulnerable."

Sandy nodded once more, thanking the doctor as he walked down the corridor and out of sight. As Robbie entered the hospital room, she cast her mind back, trying to think of anything that could explain what had just happened.

Jason had been acting odd for a while, shortly after they had moved up to Chester. Nowadays he spent as much time as he could out of the house or locked away in his room. When he was forced to spend time with his family he was grouchy and would leave as soon as he could. At first she had put it down to stress, being a teenager wasn't easy, and Jason hadn't had the easiest of times lately. Being uprooted from his home and forced to leave all his friends in his final year was education was never going to be easy, but breaking his hand and then having the pressure of making a completely new group of friends whilst some of the most important exams of his life were happening just made it all the worse.

And now this. Maybe there was something more than stress in her son's life, and she was going to find out exactly what.

The steady beeping was what woke Jason less than two hours later. He groaned, stretching slightly as he tried to work out where he was. The last thing he remembered was sitting in English. He hadn't been feeling well, but that wasn't exactly new.

Mr McQueen had sent him to the nurse and he was about to go before it all stopped. He couldn't remember anything after that, but he could probably fill in the blanks for himself. He had collapsed, he knew that, it was the only thing that made sense.

But if he had collapsed in the middle of class then that meant he was probably in... oh shit. He was in the hospital. Opening his eyes only confirmed that theory.

Ziggy was sat with him on one side of the bed though he hadn't said anything since Jason had woken up.

"What happened?" he groaned, hoping his theory would be wrong.

"You collapsed in school mate," Ziggy supplied, filling in the blanks and confirming what Jason had already suspected. When he was told that the hospital had put him on a drip he looked down and noticed two tubes. One was obviously the solution to rehydrate him and the other. The other was the insulin mix.

He could feel, getting into his system, moving around his body. He could practically feel himself inflating with every passing second and it took all his restrain not to rip the tube out. "I'll go let the others know you're awake," Ziggy said once he had finished telling Jason what he knew.

Within seconds the rest of the family had piled into the hospital room, reassuring themselves that Jason was fine and trying to answer all questions he had for them. It had barely been five minutes before the doctor treating Jason entered the room once more.

"I'm glad you're awake," he smiled holding out his hand to be shaken. "I'm Doctor Graham, I just need to ask you a few questions if that's okay?" Jason nodded and soon everyone bar the doctor began filing out of the room to give him some space.

"The main priority at the moment is to try and find out what could have caused this," he began. "You had a high number of ketones in your system which is quite a worry for us for obvious reasons. Is there anything you can think of that could have caused this."

Jason was silent for a moment, trying to think of a believable lie, though he knew that it was probably being interpreted as something completely different. "I've been quite stressed recently," he began slowly, analysing each word before he spoke it. "I'm taking my A-levels this year and there's quite a lot of pressure. I'm a bit behind because we moved at the end of the last school year and the college is a bit further ahead than my old school was, so I'm having to play quite a bit of catch up so my grades remain good.

"I'm pretty much on target now, but these last few weeks have been difficult and I've ended up forgetting to eat a few times, which before you say it, I know is incredibly stupid and irresponsible of me."

Doctor Graham was silent for a few moments, mulling over the information and reading over Jason's chart. "Have you also forgotten to take any of your insulin injections recently or have you been ill at any time?"

"I'm pretty good at keeping on target with my jabs, I've been a few hours out on some occasions but

I wouldn't say it was often enough to worry." Jason began, formulating different stories in his head, scrapping each one as quickly as he thought of them. "I have been feeling a bit weird though. Stomach pains and headaches mainly, I just thought it was the stress." At least it was partly true, he had been having those symptoms, just not for the reason he had said.
The doctor nodded, scribbling something else down before placing down the chart and making his way to the various machines that were attached to Jason. He looked at one at the screens and seemingly satisfied by what he saw he detached on of the wires from him.

"You're blood glucose levels are back to normal but you're still very dehydrated. We're going to keep you in over night for observation, but if things keep progressing the way they are you should be free to go tomorrow."
"Thank you doctor," Jason said, wishing he was at home. He would have to take the insulin now, otherwise the doctors would know something was up and he'd never be let out. He couldn't let that happen, couldn't allow anyone to become suspicious. If that meant he had to grin and bear it whilst he was injected with the one thing he hated the most, he would do it.

After all it would only be for a day. There shouldn't be that much damage caused, nothing he couldn't easily fix anyway.

As the doctor quietly left the room, he let the exhaustion take over, falling into an uneasy sleep.

So we have a reason to the collapse now! Ketoacidosis is a short-term symptom of diabulimia but is incredibly dangerous. If not treated early enough, the person can fall into a coma and even die. It is caused when there isn't enough insulin, so the body turns to burning fatty acids instead. This will then produce acidic ketones.

Unfortunately I won't be able to update till mid-August because I go away on holiday tomorrow. I hope you all enjoyed this chapter and I'll see you all then.