A/n: Okay, so I'm about two days late to the party. Or more like a week and two days because I promised this last week. Procrastination sucks. So, thanks for the eleven reviews, and being so patient with me. Also, thanks to my amazing beta, CavyGearl1991, who took the time to read and help me fix up this chapter. But you didn't click on this to hear me ramble, so now, on to the chapter.
Disclaimer: I'm pretty sure Veronica Roth isn't searching everywhere for that dollar for school tomorrow; I'm not Veronica Roth. I don't own Divergent.
Chapter Four:
It's been three weeks since the disastrous party at Zeke's, and it's the last swim meet of the school season. I'm in the locker room, changing in my swimsuit when it hits me. Damn! I forgot my pod is on my arm; I've gotten so used to placing it there, because there was another girl on my team who was diabetic as well. Now, though, it's just me, and the pod looks super out of place there. I don't have time to change it, so I gather my courage, and step out of the changing room. I hope my friends don't notice.
I head over to where Tara Wilson and Kiana Sinclair are hanging up a school banner. I'm probably too short to be of much use, but I still approach them. Kiana is the first one to see me coming.
"Hi, Tris!" she says, stepping up on a chair and taping up the last corner of the banner.
"Hi." I say, smiling at them.
"Hey, Tris, what's that on your arm?" Tara asks.
"It's an insulin pump." I say, awkwardly.
"Cool. I've been looking for something to help me quit smoking. Does it really work for you?"
"She's diabetic, idiot." Kiana says, hopping off the chair. "My aunt's type 1, and she uses an insulin pump."
"Wait, are you going to die?" Tara shrieks. Kiana and I exchange a glance.
"No." we say in unison. Tara may be our friend, but she's a total ditz.
"Oh, thank goodness!" Tara exclaims. "If you died, who would win the 500 for us?"
"Tara!" I exclaim, laughing. "What the hell?"
Kiana looks like she's inwardly face-palming. I shake my head, sighing. Yep, Tara's definitely not the brightest bulb in the box.
If you thought that was bad, you should have seen what Fiona Daniels had to ask. "Are you on birth control?" Like, who just asks someone that? I recover quickly enough to inform her that no, I am not on birth control, and that she probably shouldn't just go around asking that. She apologized of course, but it was still an awkward question.
And if that isn't bad enough, Michelle Adams asks if I have cancer! When I tell her I'm diabetic, she gets as far away from me as possible, which isn't very far, since the team is taking a pre-meet picture.
The meet goes well, and we actually win, which I'm not expecting, 'cause Vera Lopez was absent from it, and she's the only member of the team who is anywhere close to good at butterfly. I pull through on the 50 and 500, my two favorite races, and, even though I had it out with an official, I was allowed to keep my pod and medical bracelet on for the meet. This may not sound like much, but in swimming, you're not allowed to wear anything but your cap and goggles in the pool. I dunno why, it's just the way it works.
When the meet's over, I head through the lobby, skipping the team pizza party, and out to my car. I don't make habits of skipping team parties—they're usually fun—but I promised Mom I'd babysit for Shae while she and Dad went to this new Italian restaurant. While they get away from diabetes, anxiety, overdue projects, asthma, and dyslexia. I hope they enjoy it, because once they get back, it's back to the world of insulin pumps, peak flow meters, anxiety meds, nightmares, and "Where are my glasses?", from Caleb, naturally. He may be a certified genius with an IQ of over 200, but he's also a scatter-brain who once put his glasses in the soap dish, his keys in the silverware drawer, his wallet in the refrigerator, and his cell phone in the dishwasher. True story! I'm the neat freak of the family, and I was the one who put his keys back on the hall table, retrieved his cell phone from the dishwasher—before it started, thankfully—and put his ID back on the banister.
When I get home, Mom is just running out the door with Dad. I change, then fix dinner; a frozen pizza. I prefer making things from scratch, but it's late, and I have a lot of homework I haven't had time to start on. I do a finger-stick, eighty, then flip the box in my hands to find the number of carbs it contains. I then plug the number into the PDM, and head to the bottom of the stairs to call my cousin.
"Shae! Dinner!"
Shae thunders down the stairs—that kid is going to be a track star one day—and skids to a stop in front of me. "Pizza?!" she asks, her excitement clearly showing. I nod, and we both rush to claim some before Caleb gets home and eats the rest.
I help Shae with her homework—she's dyslexic, and sometimes needs an extra boost, although I'm not too much help because I'm dyslexic, too—and finally start in on my own math homework. My dyslexia mostly extends to reading, and like I said earlier, I'm a math nerd.
Before I go to bed, I slide my lips around my peak flow meter, and breathe out. The number slowly appears, 82. My best reading is 200.
I take my medicine, check my sugar, ninety, then go to bed. I don't get much sleep, though, because I wake up two hours later struggling to breathe, and shaking all over, cold sweat beading up on my forehead. Now, if it were just the cold sweat, the pounding heart, and the shaky feeling, I'd say it's a low. However, add chest pains, and my low peak flow reading earlier, I'm gonna say asthma attack, and a low. I climb out from under the covers, do a finger-stick, and wait for the results. Low and be hold, my blood sugar is sixty. (See what I did there? Low and behold? My sugar is low? Okay, I'll stop.) I suspend the pump, eat a bag of Skittles, and then pad down the hall to my parents' room. I'm able handle most asthma and sugar problems on my own, but an attack and a low is a new one on me, and I really don't want to pass out before I can get to my inhaler. I knock on their door. Hard.
Mom opens it in her nightgown. When she sees me, she jumps from confusion into Mom mode. We've been in situations similar to this one enough for her to know exactly how to do it.
"Beatrice, eat was your glucose level?" Mom asks, following me back down the hall.
"Sixty," wheeze, "I took," wheeze, "some candy," wheeze, "but I don't know if," wheeze, "it's enough to raise it."
"Okay. Let me go get the peak flow meter. Do you remember your reading from earlier today?"
"Eighty-two." I answer.
"Okay, honey. Do another blood test; I'll be right back. And try to breathe." With that, she's gone.
I do another finger-stick, and wait for the result. It only takes five seconds, but it feels like it's taking five lifetimes. Finally, the result comes back. Fifty-five. I look for some candy, but I realize that I ate my last bag of Skittles. I was gonna get more, but I didn't have time.
I pop some glucose tabs, and choke them down. They taste like chalk, despite the fact that they're supposed to be grape flavor. I do another finger-stick, fifty-eight. Good. It's coming back up.
Mom comes running in. She takes the PDM from me, and thrusts the peak flow meter into my hands. She's moving efficiently, and I'm struggling to move period. I blow through the tube again, and we wait. Mom holds up my kit, and flips through it until she finds sty rescue inhaler. She shoves that into my hands, and reads the peak flow reading aloud.
"Forty. Beatrice, I'm gonna have to take you to the Emergency Room."
The drive to the hospital takes eons. I've gotten my breathing under control, thanks to my inhaler, but my blood sugar is still bouncing around in the mid to low fifties, and my peak flow reading keeps dropping every time I check. When we left the house, it was thirty-eight. When we get to the hospital, it's twenty-two. It dropped sixteen points in under thirty minutes; the hospital's a ways from our house, and it didn't occur to Mom to call an ambulance... or grab my nebulizer. Every ten minutes, I have to use the rescue inhaler again.
The doctors work quickly. They get my breathing stabilized by injecting me with a steroid to open my airways. The nurse comes in, and takes PDM from me so he can check my numbers. He seems to like what he sees, although he does lecture me about not checking before the swim meet—I'm notoriously bad about checking, applying my temp basal, and eating before meets, mostly because of all the pep-talks, and all the pre-meet hustle. Also, there's a blind girl on the team that I volunteered to get where she needed to be, because her cane isn't practical in a pool area,.
Tyler gives me a cherry coke to sip on while he gets the nurse to put an insulin bag on my IV and check my vitals.
Tyler looks at me, all business, and says, "Tris, have you ever had an asthma attack, and a low on the same day?"
I shake my head; no.
"Well," Tyler says, "you did have a swim meet today, and forgot to check your sugar, set your temp basal, and eat something. You probably gave yourself extra insulin at dinner to compensate. You bolused for the equivalent of two slices of pizza, but only ate one. We won't mess with your basal rates or anything; just try to be more careful. We'll keep you overnight, just for observation."
I nod, and close my eyes. Tyler leaves, letting the door fall shut behind him. I decide to focus on sleeping, since I know the nurses is gonna come in to do some poking and prodding soon. The last thing my sleep-deprived mind thinks of: Christina is gonna kill me.
A/n: So, I hope you enjoyed the chapter. The next one will be coming out on Saturday; I swear on the River Styx. Okay, so do you think we can get to fifteen reviews? I think we can! Alrighty, audios amigos!
Bianca.
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