37. Constitution Save Failed
Chapter thirty-seven
Constitution Save: Failed
Cameron
“Is this because of the crazy couch sex?”
I stop halfway through filling my water bottle and stare at Dex.
He is leaning against the kitchen island, eating dry cereal out of a mixing bowl because apparently actual dishes have become optional now.
“No.”
“You answered very quickly.”
“Because that was two weeks ago, you absolute walnut.”
Micah chokes on his coffee.
Dex points his spoon at me. “I was asking a medically relevant question.”
“You were asking whether my urinary tract infection was caused by the five of us turning the living room into an OSHA violation.”
“Yes.”
“That is not medically relevant.”
“It feels medically relevant.”
Ronan looks up from his laptop at the other end of the island. “It was fourteen days ago.”
I turn toward him. “Thank you.”
“That does not make Dex's question impossible.”
I stare at him.
His mouth twitches.
Traitor.
Dex looks delighted. “Dungeon Daddy is on my side.”
“I am not on your side. I am correcting her implication that elapsed time alone completely excludes causality.”
I roll my eyes. “Oh my God.”
Micah sets his mug down. “You’ve had two doses of antibiotics now, right?”
“Yes, thank fuck for urgent care.”
My water bottle reaches the top, and I screw the lid on before I can overflow it all over the counter.
“You couldn’t go see your regular doctor?” Dex asks.
He was working at the bar last night, so he’s playing some catch-up.
“I went to urgent care yesterday because apparently seeing my actual primary-care provider while actively sick now requires scheduling the illness six business days in advance.”
Dex winces. “A week?”
“Closest appointment they had.”
He scoffs. “Very efficient healthcare system we've built.”
“Right? I especially enjoy that Griffin pays hundreds of dollars a month for the privilege.”
The urgent-care doctor hadn't seemed particularly impressed by my symptoms, which was reassuring in its own way. Burning, urgency, frequency, some lower abdominal pressure. Urine sample. Antibiotics. Culture sent off to make sure we weren't treating the wrong thing.
Annoying, but boring.
I like boring medical problems.
Boring medical problems get pills and go away.
The antibiotics are already helping, which is the best part of this morning.
I only woke up like ten times last night to pee instead of approximately forty-seven times I got up the night before, and for the first time since yesterday afternoon I don't feel like someone has replaced my bladder with a tiny angry hedgehog.
My blood sugar, unfortunately, has chosen violence.
My phone buzzes on the counter.
Dex looks at it.
Then at me. “That's the angry one.”
“I know.”
My Dexcom is reading 238 with a diagonal-up arrow.
Again.
I sigh and pick up my phone.
Of course it is.
I've been diabetic long enough that “you're sick your insulin needs might go up” isn't useful information anymore.
I've heard versions of that sentence from endocrinologists, emergency room doctors, diabetes educators, nurses, handouts, discharge instructions, and approximately every piece of sick-day guidance written in the last decade.
I know.
My body is fighting something.
My blood sugar is being an asshole about it.
This morning I woke up at 226, corrected, drank enough water to qualify as my own municipal reservoir, ate breakfast, and corrected again when breakfast did what breakfast does.
By late morning, I was back under 180.
Good enough.
More importantly, the correction had worked.
So when the number starts climbing again, irritation comes a lot faster than fear.
Micah glances toward my phone. “That bad?”
“No. Just irritating.”
Dex already has his phone out. “Mine says 238.”
“I know what it says.”
“Just confirming.”
“I appreciate the redundancy.”
His expression shifts enough that I can see the actual concern underneath the bullshit. “Seriously. You're okay?”
“Yes.”
I pull my insulin controller closer and look at the recommended correction. “I'm sick. My numbers are being stupid. This is not exactly uncharted territory.”
Ronan's gaze lifts from his laptop. “And the Pod?”
“Was working fine this morning.”
That answer satisfies me more than saying “it's fine” would.
Because I know better than to fall in love with one explanation.
Griffin has drilled that into me almost as hard as every diabetes educator I've ever had: don't blame every high on the pump, but don't keep blaming everything else if insulin stops behaving like insulin.
This morning, it behaved.
I corrected.
I came down.
Good enough for now.
The Pod itself is on the upper curve of my right buttock, which is not exactly a convenient place for casual visual inspection unless I want to get naked in the kitchen and ask for volunteers.
It hasn't hurt.
No alarms.
No leaking insulin smell.
Nothing that makes me suspicious.
So I take the correction and move on.
Dex's phone chirps again.
He grabs it. “Two-forty-one.”
I give him a flat look. “You know you don't have to narrate my glucose in real time.”
“I am providing color commentary.”
“You're making me regret giving all of you ‘Follow’ access.”
Micah lifts his phone off the counter. “I'm muting mine for an hour.”
“Thank you.”
Dex looks scandalized. “What if she dies?”
“I am standing right here.”
“That would make it particularly awkward.”
I roll my eyes.
Micah swipes at his screen. “Cami and Griffin both said this is expected. I'm not listening to her phone yell at me every five minutes because she went from 238 to 241.”
“Coward.”
Ronan goes back to his laptop. “I lowered the alert volume.”
I blink. “You did?”
“Yes.”
“Ronan.”
“It has alarmed eleven times in the last two hours.”
“Why do you know the exact number?”
He looks at me.
I don't know why I asked.
Dex points at him with his spoon. “See? He cares.”
“I never said I didn't.”
Dex doesn’t respond.
I pick up my water bottle. “Everyone can calm down. I am going to keep doing what I've been doing, finish my antibiotic, and continue being personally victimized by my own endocrine system.”
“Do you want me to bring you anything?” Micah asks.
“A new pancreas.”
“I'll check .”
“Prime only.”
Dex looks thoughtful. “Do you think they'd accept Ronan's in trade?”
Ronan doesn't look up. “No.”
Dex shakes his head. “Selfish.”
I laugh and head upstairs.
By midafternoon, I am tired of diabetes.
Not in the existential I have to do this every day for the rest of my life way.
I did that at seventeen.
Did it again at twenty-two when I apparently needed a sequel.
Today's version is much less profound.
Today I am simply tired of having a chronic disease that keeps requesting my attention like a toddler repeatedly saying, “Mom. Mom. Mom. Mom.”
Every time I think I've gotten my blood sugar moving in the right direction, it changes its mind.
The correction from the kitchen works.
Not dramatically, but enough.
238 becomes 221.
Then 203.
Then 194.
I answer emails from bed with my laptop propped against my knees, refill my water bottle, and pee approximately every twenty minutes. Some of that is the UTI. Some is the truly irresponsible amount of water I'm drinking on purpose. Some is probably the glucose.
Whatever.
At least the bathroom trips no longer involve bracing myself against the wall and reconsidering whether civilization was a mistake.
My phone buzzes again while I'm replying to a client.
247
Diagonal up.
I close my eyes, but I don't ignore it.
I grab my meter.
Fingerstick.
252
Close enough.
“Cool,” I tell nobody. “Everybody agrees.”
The pump suggests another correction, smaller than the amount my irritated brain thinks I deserve because I still have insulin working.
Fine.
I've been told for more than a decade not to stack corrections just because I don't like the number currently staring at me.
Apparently accumulated wisdom remains inconvenient.
I take what it recommends.
Then I pull the blood ketone meter from my diabetes bag.
Nothing about how I feel is screaming emergency. I'm not nauseated. I'm not vomiting. My stomach doesn't hurt outside of the irritation I've already been dealing with. Mostly I'm tired, thirsty, and deeply offended by my graph.
Still.
Sick plus pump plus blood sugar stubbornly over 250 means I check.
Not because Griffin would tell me to.
Not because anyone is hovering over me.
Because I've been doing this long enough to know when boring maintenance becomes worth the extra fingerstick.
Tiny drop of blood.
The meter thinks about it.
0.2.
I breathe out through my nose.
Beautifully boring.
I take a picture of the ketone meter beside my Dexcom screen and send it to Griffin.
Cami
Fingerstick 252, Dexcom 247
Ketones 0.2
Correction onboard
Still drinking enough water to drown a horse
I don’t expect a response to come immediately.
He's working.
His shift started this morning, and the last time we talked he was eating something from a gas station that he referred to as “technically food.”
I put my phone down and go back to my email.
Eight minutes later it buzzes.
Griffin
Good. That's exactly what I wanted to hear.
How do you feel?
I smile.
He’s a paramedic, but he is also my husband.
Cami
Better UTI-wise. Tired because I slept like shit. No nausea, no stomach pain, nothing weird. Just thirsty and annoyed.
Griffin
Keep watching it. If correction doesn't move you or ketones come up, change the Pod and use the backup insulin.
Cami
Yes, dad
I roll my eyes affectionately.
As if I don't know.
Griffin
Don’t make that weird
I laugh.
Cami
Wrong household for that request
There’s a long pause before he responds.
Griffin
You’re impossible
Cami
Yet you love me
Griffin
Unfortunately
Love you
The smile happens before I can stop it.
Cami
Love you too
Go save Denver
Griffin
Trying
I set my phone down again and go back to emailing clients.
By early evening, the number finally starts moving down.
Slowly enough that I glare at it anyway, but down.
252 becomes 239.
239 becomes 226.
At one point I hit 211 and almost take a screenshot because apparently my standards have deteriorated.