Ann Martin - Stacey's Emergency

"Relieved, I guess," I told her. "Well, not completely relieved. I'm really worried about whatever is wrong with me. But I have to admit that now that I'm in the hospital, awful as it is, I'm glad to know there are all these doctors around. I feel taken care of."

"That's good," said Laine slowly. She frowned slightly. Then her face brightened. "Wait till you see what I brought you!" she cried.

"What?" I asked suspiciously. Laine's taste can sometimes be strange. Once, she had given me a key chain that looked like a cicada (a really ugly, big, green, winged bug). That was bad enough. But when you pressed a button on the underside of the bug, its green eyes flashed on and off, and it made this weird high-pitched humming sound. (I scared people with it until the battery wore out.)

"Okay," said Laine. "First" (she reached into a plastic bag that she'd set on the floor beside her chair), "these beautiful flowers.

Anyone who goes to the hospital should receive flowers. So here you are." Laine handed me a bouquet of electric-blue plastic tulips. They were packaged beautifully in Handi-Wrap.

"Charming," I said. I stuck them in an empty water pitcher.

"And they're low-maintenance," Laine went on. "No watering, and they don't need any light. Just dust them once in awhile."

I giggled. "Okay."

"Next," said Laine, reaching into the bag again, "is this." She handed me a small box. "It came from the Last Wound-Up."

"Oh, goody!" I cried. (The Last Wound-Up is this store near Laine's apartment that sells all sorts of funny wind-up toys.) I lifted the lid. Inside the box lay a huge brown plastic spider — wearing a pair of red glasses. Laine wound him up and let him wiggle across my bed table.

"Gross!" I exclaimed. But I couldn't help laughing.

"Can you believe it?" Laine said. "I got the red glasses somewhere else. They just hap-pend to fit the spider."

"He looks very scholarly," I told Laine.

Laine and I watched the spider crawl across the table and fall to the floor.

"Two more things," Laine continued. She

handed me a big, gaudy get-well card.

"Thanks!" I said.

"And last," began Laine, "I talked with the members of the BSC. I called Claudia this morning, and it turned out that your friends were holding an emergency club meeting. I have messages from everybody. Mal says she's thinking about you. Mary Anne and Dawn say they miss you. Kristy says to get back on your feet because Dawn isn't all that good at handling the money in the treasury. Jessi promises to write to you so you'll be sure to get mail in the hospital. And Claud says she's getting your homework assignments — and that she misses you an awful lot."

By the time Laine left, I felt very cheered up.

Chapter 8.

Wednesday morning.

I was beginning my fourth full day of hospital life. My blood sugar level had been lowered, but the doctors still weren't satisfied. They were giving me an awful lot of insulin just to keep the blood sugar down — but not where it should be. However, I was feeling better. I was much less tired. Mom encouraged me to make my days as normal as possible.

That meant getting dressed, doing homework assignments (plus s#// trying to catch up in most of my subjects), and waking up fairly early. No sleeping late. (Darn it.) Of course, it would have been difficult to sleep late anyway, considering the bustle of hospital life. What was a typical day like for me? Well, I'll tell you.

Wednesday began at seven o'clock when my alarm clock (yes, my alarm clock) went off. I got up, changed out of my nightgown and into

regular old street clothes (jeans and stuff), and washed up as well as I could in my bathroom. (The bathroom had a sink and a toilet, but no shower or tub.)

At seven-thirty I flopped onto my bed and began doing schoolwork. My mom had said that getting dressed and leading a "normal" life would make my hospital stay more manageable. And it did, I guess. Even so, the hospital was still a foreign place, with lots of intrusions on my "normalcy."

For instance, by eight o'clock, I was deeply engrossed in writing an overdue essay for social studies, when I heard carts and machinery being rolled down the hall. "Yuck," I said to myself. "It's — "

"Time for vital signs," said a nurse cheerfully as he wheeled a blood pressure instrument into my room. (I happen to know that the blood pressure instrument is called a sphygmomanometer. This is the kind of information you pick up when you spend a lot of time in hospitals and doctors' offices.)

"Okay," I replied. I put my books aside. Then I sat in one of the visitor's chairs and, without being told, opened my mouth and extended my arm.

The nurse grinned. "I guess you're an old pro now," he said.

"Unfortunately," I agreed.

The nurse put a thermometer in my mouth and wrapped the black cuff of the sphygmo-manometer around my upper arm. He listened to the pulse in the crook of my elbow with a stethoscope for a few moments, made a note on a chart, and then said, "Stand, please." I stood. I don't know why they take your blood pressure when you're both sitting and standing, but they do.

I sat down again. The nurse removed the cuff from my arm. Then he took my pulse. Just as he was finishing, the thermometer beeped. I should add here that the thermometer wasn't a regular glass one. It was plastic and wired to a box. A tone sounded when the thermometer was done taking your temperature, and then your temperature flashed up digitally on the box, like the time on a clock radio. Another miracle of modern medicine.

"All systems go," said the nurse.

"Good," I replied. Then I added, "Thank you."

The nurse's name was Rufus. (That's what was printed across the front of his uniform.) But I didn't bother to remember it. A different nurse had taken my vital signs every morning.

I returned to my social studies essay, only to be interrupted by a nurse's aide bringing breakfast. So I set aside my books and tried to force down the disgusting food. Before I

had finished, Mom appeared in the doorway.

"Hi, lovey," she said, settling into a chair.

"Hi!" I answered.

"How are you feeling today?"

"Not bad," I replied. "But I know the doctors are going to fiddle around with the insulin again."

"Well, that's what you're here for."

"I guess."

"Have you been working already?"

I held up the paper with my half-finished essay on it. "I'm trying," I told Mom, "but I keep getting interrupted. Vital signs and breakfast."

"And me."

"No, not you," I said, but I saw that Mom was smiling. She wasn't serious. "Is Dad coming today?" I asked her. (Monday and Tuesday had been somewhat unnerving with Mom and Dad trying to see me but at the same time trying to avoid each other.)

"I don't think so," Mom answered. "I mean, not until later. He has a full day of meetings. I'll stay with you, though."

"Only if you want to," I told her. "Don't feel you have to sit in that chair all day. I have homework, and anyway, I'm much better."

"Okay." Mom actually did leave for awhile. She said she was going to have a cup of coffee somewhere and then take a cab to midtown

(where most of my favorite stores are located). She said she was on a secret mission. I hoped it involved clothes shopping — for me.

Mom left as the nurse's aide came to retrieve my tray. I picked up my essay again, and again I was interrupted, this time by a whole group of people in long white coats. I recognized only one of them. He was a doctor who'd examined me several times. He began talking, and the rest of the people took notes on clipboards they were carrying. I guessed that they were medical students or new doctors or something, and that my doctor was their teacher.

The doctor greeted me, then turned back to his class. "This patient," he said, "is a thirteen-year-old girl" (he didn't even use my name!) "with juvenile onset of diabetes. She was hospitalized last Saturday, at which time she was found to have an abnormally high blood sugar level, despite the fact that she's been taking insulin and has been on a strict diet since she was first diagnosed. ..."