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Please note I am not a doctor
If I get anything wrong blame Google
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F L O R E N C E
"How're you feeling baby?" Dominic wraps his arms around my shoulders on our walk back to the car. We went out to a very fancy steakhouse restaurant on the other side of Toronto. It's away from the hustle and bustle of the nighttime city.
"Okay," I reply with a small wheeze. Truth is I don't even know how I'm feeling. I mean before we ate I could barely stand. Today was too long, but I faked being okay for Dominic's sake. He deserves to celebrate an achievement he's spent his whole life practicing for. "I feel better after eating."
"That's good, if you are feeling better tomorrow I say we try to go skating again." He suggests, a hint of excitement in his voice.
My smile drops, skating is really scary."Oh yeah, great." I try to be cheery but it just comes out pitiful and embarrassing.
He laughs pulling me into his side. "Don't worry, it'll be fun. I mean you also have a pretty good coach, he's on Team Canada." He whispers bending down to my ear.
"Tell the slippery ice and the sharp skates that you are on Team Canada, maybe then I won't eat shit on the ice." I grumble.
He starts talking but this thick wave of fog settles over me. Now I can't hear him, and I'm winded. My vision tips back and forth from a blurry view of the parking lot we are walking on to thick cloud of black nothingness. I try my best to listen and to regain my composure.
After a couple seconds of muffled talking I can start to hear again. Dominic is talking about how excited he is about being on the team. I can't concentrate on him when all I can think about is the throbbing pain in my stomach and the heavy headache that appeared out of nowhere that now looms over my brain.
"Hey are you okay?" He stops talking and looks down at me. When he bends down to my height his head duplicates. I see two fuzzy versions of Dominic both talking and panicking.
I don't blame him. The other three stayed back for a few minutes at the bar. They wanted to get a drink and Dominic wanted to take me on a small walk.
"Dom." I whisper. His heads merge together to form one clear head. He has his phone to his ear frantically talking to someone. He pauses and looks at me yelling at the other person to shut up. "I'm really tired."
"It's okay, Flo it's okay. They are on their way and then we can go home okay?"
It all comes out of nowhere, because the next thing I know I'm bent over, puking up everything I ate for dinner in the middle of the steakhouse parking lot. Dominic's holding my hair back and holding me up. I'm too unsteady.
"Massimo!" Dominic shouts across the parking lot.
"What's wrong?!" Massimo yells back, he's halfway to us.
"She's confused, throwing up, her face is really red, and she's unstable." He tells him once he reaches us.
"Massy, I don't feel good." My head pounds.
"Shit shit shit." He mutters under his breath. His fingers are pressed against my neck, checking my pulse. "Florence you're going to hyperventilate, I need you to breathe."
I didn't even know I was breathing too fast until he said that. The headache fog too strong for me to even process what's happening around me.
"Emilio start the car," he orders before looking at me again. "Let's go to the car okay?"
Before he could help me move my legs give out and I'm on the ground. "Dom?" I call to him, in a second his face is hovering over me. I feel the sensation of someone stroking my hair, and I hear the sound of Lucien calling someone frantically.
"Yeah? Everything's going to be alright okay?" He's crying, I want to cry. I ruined this. I ruined his night.
"I'm sorry," I hiccup. "I ruined your night."
"It's okay, don't think about tha—" his voice fades out, same as my vision.
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M A S S I M O
She looks so fragile.
Her skin is pale and pierced with needles and tubes that travel up to different bags and machines next to her bed. She looks skinny.
How did I not notice sooner? She was eating a lot, healthy too. She was drinking water. She never showed signs of discomfort until that first night. We should've taken her to the hospital on the second day. Why did we wait until she passed out in the middle of the steakhouse parking lot to call an ambulance? How did we not clue in that maybe she is really sick.
Why did we stay for an extra drink when we knew it was late at night, and Florence was still not feeling well? What kind of brother and guardian am I for not properly taking care of her?
I shouldn't have taken her to Doms game, she should've stayed home and napped and not overexert herself.
Now she's on the hospital bed asleep. A breathing tube helping her breath, the EKG beeping at a steady rate.
My brothers are a mess, especially Dominic. How did we not realize?
"This is the second time she's ended up in the hospital because we were too ignorant to realize something greater was wrong." I mumble gaining the attention of my exhausted and groggy brothers. We are still in yesterdays clothes, none of us had an ounce of sleep, we haven't had anything to eat since our dinner last night, and our eyes are probably red because they sting from the lack of sleep and the attempts to hold back our tears.
"She looked like she had the flu." Lucien tries to defend our actions but he can't even convince himself that we weren't in the wrong here. Because we were.
"Has the doctors not said anything all night?" Emilio looks over at me. I shake my head. I was the only person allowed in her room over the night. The boys stayed in the waiting room. Visiting hours are bullshit. I would go to our hospital but I want specialized doctors to treat Florence.
Our doctor Charles is great for traumas like broken bones or bullet wounds, but he's not as knowledgeable in your day to day illnesses and diseases like other doctors are.
The nurse walks in, grabbing Flo's chart as she makes her rounds. "We haven't heard anything from the doctors yet." Emilio informs her. She looks away from Florence's EKG, focusing on us.
She sighs. "The labs were backed up last night. The doctor should be in here shortly with the reports." She sympathetically smiles at us.
She knows something.
"Do you have a child?" I ask her.
Caught off guard she nods her head. "Yeah I have two."
"If one of your children collapsed in a parking lot and rushed to the hospital in an ambulance, put in a bed, with a tube down their throat and tubes in their arms. Tell me. Would you want to wait all night to hear what was wrong with your baby?"
"No sir." She looks thoughtful, like the idea of her child being in the same position as Florence right now would be unfathomable.
"I have had to sit here and watch every hour a new nurse comes in, writes on that clipboard, then leaves with no indication of what happened to my baby. You know what's wrong with my child and the thought of sitting in this room for another minute clueless to what is happening to her is making me sick myself," everyone's eyes are on me. She's looking at me with sympathy, and pity. But also understanding. "Please just tell me what's wrong with my child."
In my peripheral, my brothers heads snap towards me. I don't look at them though. I stare at the nurse begging her to tell me what's wrong.
She sighs. "I can't tell you an exact diagnosis until the tests are back. But in my twenty-five years of nursing, just from her symptoms I have an idea of what it could be."
"What is it?" Dom asks her immediately.
"Miss Young has common symptoms of type one diabetes."
"Diabetes?" I asks dumbfounded.
"Mr. Young, the thought of being in your position is unbearable. I am so sorry that you four have had to wait all night. I can't diagnose her because I can't be certain without the tests. The doctor will be here in a few minutes. I wish you all and your sister the best." She quickly leaves the room. Lucien smacks his knee in anger and disbelief.
"Just drops a bomb and leaves." He rolls his eyes but settles down from his little outburst. I ignore him and stand from the terribly uncomfortable hospital chair I haven't moved from all night. Moving up next to Florence's bed I pull some hair out of her face and press a small kiss to her forehead.
After a long, painful agonizing wait, the doctor finally shows up, a clipboard in his hands. "Hello, my name is Doctor Habib, are you Florence's family?"
I nod, a lump forming in my throat.
"From the tests we ran last night we did tested her ketone levels, through a blood test as well as a urine. We also did a blood glucose test, to see her blood sugar levels. From the results of this test her blood sugar was very high, and ketones which helps fuel metabolism was present in her urine as well as her blood. From the tests and her symptoms we believe her body went into Diabetic Ketoacidosis. DKA is a complication of type one diabetes when the body produces high levels of blood acids called ketones. The condition develops when the body can't produce enough insulin."
"So you're saying that she is diabetic?" I ask, just trying to wrap my mind around this new information.
"Yes, typically DKA is how some people, just like your sister Florence, gets diagnosed with diabetes. There is no family history of diabetes correct?"
Thinking back I go to shake my head no, but Emilio cuts in. "Yeah, our grandmother had it." All of our heads turn to him. Since when? He rolls his eyes and dismisses the three of us with a wave. I didn't know grandma had diabetes.
Dr. Habib writes that information down. He nods his head a few times, while clicking his tongue. He reads over her files, and while I am grateful that he's paying attention to detail I would really like for Florence to wake up and for us to go home.
I have spent way too much time in hospitals in the past month. And just by Flos diagnosis I have a feeling we will all be regulars at Toronto General Hospital for the time being.
"What do we do now?" I ask impatiently. My question cuts his annoying tongue clicking off and he cranes his head to face me.
"Your sister will be given insulin shots through a needle to control her blood sugar levels as well as her IV which will help clear the ketones from her urine. She will be fine since we caught this early. We will monitor her for the next couple hours and depending on her condition chances are she can go home tonight. We will prepare all of you with insulin shots as well as training and signs and symptoms to look out for." His explanation eases my nerves. The boys all shake his hand but I don't move from my seat.
My eyes still glued to Florence.
"When will she wake up?" Dominic questions the doc on his way out. Taking a quick glance at Florence, then scanning the room his eyes land on Dom.
"I'd say anytime in the next half hour."
He makes his leave. This leaves us in an unsettling silence. No one moves, no one speaks. We just sit and think.
I think about Florence and how much difficult things will be for her. She's going to have to spend the rest of her life monitoring her glucose levels. She's going to get sick more than normal. She'll have to go to appointments monthly, and watch what she eats.
I just wanted her to be a happy, healthy kid.
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Ayo, hope you all liked the chapter.
If anyone has advice on how I can make my writing better please let me know. I am taking my time with writing chapters because I want to put out my best work but I believe there is always room for improvement. So just let me know ;)
Lots of love 💕