"Secret Of Suzy Johnson"

chapter 1

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I was not going to talk, I decided as I climbed into the car. I had nothing more to say, at least nothing that anybody would care to hear. The best thing I could do for all concerned was to seal my mouth shut.
         I stared out the window and I tried to sweep my mind clean of thoughts. It wasn't easy. My inner voice muttered and grumbled. I didn't want to be with my mother in this stupid car, where I'd have to sit through a meeting of the stupid teen group!! I didn't want to see all those kids with their wheelchairs and bald heads and their IV poles, and I didn't want to hear their miserable stories. Most of all I didn't want to tell them mine. I didn't want to tell my story to anyone today.
          "Is it getting hot for you?" Mom asked cheerfully from the driver's seat. "Want me to put the AC on?"
           I shook my head and burrowed deeper into my silence.
           Mom waited a few minutes and tried again.
"Not much traffic this afternoon."
           It wasn't really a question, so I nodded in agreement. I thought it was over until she spoke again.
            "Who was that girl you liked so much when you were in last time?"
            This was a real question, a step beyond yes or no. I let a second or two pass by and responded grudgingly, "Stella nelson."
            "That's right!" Mom exclaimed. "I remember her. She had an operation, didn't she?"
             My mother can be as stubborn as I am. She was not going to give up.
             "On her hip," I said. I stared out the window to let her know the conservation was over.
              The ride to the hospital took nearly an hour because it was the only hospital for diabetic patients.
As the minutes piled up, I grew bored and restless. Maybe it would be okay to toss out a comment or two, just to fill in the void. But no----- that would mean Mom had won this round. I was still too angry to give in.
                At last Faith city Hospital loomed before us. The place really scared me the first time I saw it, but I'd gotten used to it by now. Once we were inside, Mom waved me to the elevator. She said she'd have coffee and meet me in an hour.
"Okay," I said without a smile, and headed up to the adolescent wing D~4.
                 The head nurse on D~4 spotted me the moment I stepped off the elevator "Suzy, how are you" she called.
"Let's go down to the lounge. We're starting in three minutes."
We rounded the corner past the nurses' station and found the door to the lounge open and inviting. Music rolled out into the  corridor, as if this weren't really a hospital at all.
We stepped through the door and glanced nervously around the room , searching for familiar faces. Joseph and Tunde were the center of attraction,intent on one of their arms wrestling matches. I was just in time to see Joseph push tunde's to the table. A cheered went up from the kids gathered around them. I clapped, too. Tunde's turned in his wheelchair and called a greeting.
A new girl was in the group today.
My friend Stella sat by the window. Before I could say hello to her, another girl rushed over and gave her a joyful hug. I'd seen her a few weeks ago, the last time I was a patient here,but I couldn't remember her name.
I finally realised that the head nurse was in the room because a boy in baggy jeans reached over and switched off the music. Every whisper and rustle resounded in sudden silence.
                 I helped drag the chairs into a circle, as I had done so many times before. Stella waved me over to sit beside her. I noticed a pair of crutches behind her , leaning against the wall.
                "I like your shirt," Stella said. "It's really cool!"
         "Thanks," I said." I went to the mall on Saturday."
                 The last time I saw Stella, she was using an aluminum walker. Now she had graduated to crutches. I wanted to ask her if they were had to handle, or if they helped her walked faster. But I had the feeling Stella wanted to think about other things.
She wanted to talk about shopping trips and TV shows, not the latest installment in her own medical drama. I felt exactly the same way.
                   As she always did, the head nurse started us out with introductions. Most kids told bits about themselves, and some even explained what landed them at Faith city. I reminded my self of the promise I'd made as I climbed into the car.
When it was my turn I said" Suzy Johnson," and left it at that. I was not going to talk in the group any more than I had to.
                  "This is Chichi's first meeting. You guys better not scare her away," the head nurse teased.
                  I thought about of my first session with the group. It had been two years ago, the first time I'd ever been in the hospital. I was so weak I could barely walk from my room to the lounge. I had to wheel my IV pole beside me; it came along wherever I went, like a mechanical shadow. Sitting in the lounge, listening to the other teens talk about their illnesses, I felt as through I had stepped onto a different planet. Leg braces, body casts, wheelchairs, and bandages were the norm. With my IV pole, I fit right in. No one gave me a second glance.
              In the group that afternoon two years ago, I realized that I was not alone with my illness. Some destiny had handed out injuries and diseases to each of us in the lounge. We were each alone when we were hurt, when we faced some painful test or procedure. But here in the group we were all together.
            I remembered that sense of comfort as my gaze traveled from face-to-face around the circle the head nurse caught my eye and smiled. I found my self smiling back.
"How's every body's been?"she asked. It was an open invitation. Anyone could kick off the discussion. Instantly we were all in guard. No one uttered a word. The silence stretched taut, waiting to be broken.
          I scared dared to breathe. My heart raced. My hands clenched on my lap. Suddenly my own voice sprang into the room. "I had another fight with my Mom this morning."
           Everybody turned to look at me, waiting for more. "What about?" Tunde asked.
          "The regular stuff," I signed. Then it all tumbled out, all the irritations and injustices I'd been living with for the past three weeks. "She's watching me like a hawk now, every single bite I take. And she's checking my charts, and fussing that my glucose is up, and asking all the time am I okay------- she drives me nuts!"
       "So you told her to bug off?" Lilian asked.
         I giggled. It was so much worse than that! I had to tell them about this morning. "Finally she goes, 'Let me help you with your insulin injection, honey.' Hey, I always inject myself! Since when do I need her help? I lost it. Totally. I go, ' Mom, what part of NO don't you get?
         Everyone burst out laughing, even the head nurse. I laughed myself. Until this moment , I hadn't known that this morning's fight had a spark of humour. It was no laughing matter at the time. I'd wanted to cry, or break things. I'd wanted to rage about the unfairness of it all.
          The head nurse got serious as soon as the laughter died down. "Why do you think your mom is so worried all of a sudden ?" She asked. "Like you say, she's used to you handling your diabetes yourself."
           "Oh, it's because I was in here," I said wearily.
        "She gets weird when I gave a crisis."
           Now that I'd started talking, l didn't want to stop. I wanted to tell them all about the past weeks, all my irritations and frustrations. But the discussion veered away from me to chichi and another girl jumoke, who both had a disease called leukemia. I waited for a chance to jump back in. Finally the head nurse brought the conversation around to parents again.
            "How to cope with them coping with us," said James tilting back in his chair.
          "Me and my Mom had run-ins before I got leukemia," Suzy said. "It's still the same, only now she has a particular thing to zero in on."
            Now was my chance. "The thing that really gets my parents is when I grab a chocolate bar or a juice box before my proper snack time. Their fussing at me makes my glucose levels zoom up more than the food!"
           "Well," said Tunde could be so obnoxious! Sometimes he tried o act as if he were one of the grown ups. "You mean," I asked icily, "that I should do exactly what I'm supposed to all the time?"
            "Might be worth a try," the midget said. " if you want them to quit nagging you."
             "They can't expect me to be perfect," I protested. "I take care of my self pretty well, I really do."
             "Then how did you get in here last month?" Tunde pressed.
             "You don't get it, how complicated diabetes is," I said. I sighed. I was going to have to tell them the whole story. "I did sneak a few extra snacks, okay? Added to that, I was studying for a couple of tests at school. So all this stress was coming at once. My numbers got crazy. I was running high a lot, and I'd raise my insulin dosage to bring the numbers down. Then I'd end up way low instead. It was a mess. So one day I wrote a couple of numbers that weren't really true------ and when they discovered that, they slapped me and got me in here to get everything straightened out."
             "And it all caught up with you," the head nurse said commented.
            "I nodded. "I had to miss school for two weeks because I was in the hospital," I said. "It was awful!"
               "So what good did your cheating do you?" Tunde said. "You missed school anyway, plus you got sick."
         "I learned my lesson ," I said. "I went too far, but it won't happen again."
        "How do you know your parents know that?" The head nurse asked.
             "I pondered. " I guess they don't," I said. "Not yet."
       I was quiet after that, letting the discussion flow around me. For the past two years I had lived with diabetes. The disease fenced me in with its rules and restrictions. Four times a day I injected myself with insulin, and four or more times a day I pricked my finger to test the glucose level in my bloodstream. Meals and snacks were regulated according to schedules, weights, and measures. I kept charts to calculate my food intake, gram per gram. My food intake determined how many units of insulin I would need to inject. It was a good thing I'd always done
Well in arithmetic. In order to survive diabetes you had to be a mathematician.
              For me any food containing carbohydrates was a  closely controlled substance. It wasn't as though I were allergic to sugar and starch and  could simply eliminate them from my diet. It was far more tricky. Like everyone else, I needed sugar to keep me going----- but the amount and the timing of what I ate were critical. Even something as innocent as an apple or a boiled potato could be eaten only on schedule. Too much sugar worked like poison In my system. Too little sent me drifting towards unconsciousness.
            As I thought about the past too years, I realized I wasn't really mad at my parents. I was angry at diabetes itself. I wanted to rage against this disease itself? I wanted to rage against this disease that held me in it's grip. It stifled my spontaneity, it sapped my freedom. It set me apart from everyone around me.
               Why did diabetes happen to me? I asked myself for the thousandth time. It wasn't fair. I hadn't done anything to deserve it. Why me? Why me?