Nighttime

Its 1:30a.m. Sleep is only coming now. I have those middle aged, middle management, middle of the night cares that keep husbands up watching telly till all hours.

I go to check K.    Tester isn't on the bedside locker, nor the desk. I trot back downstairs, checking the usual places...no, not on the dining room table where it can be dropped heedlessly.     Not on the kitchen counter where supper was eaten. Not on the couch where she pleaded to be left up for another few minutes.

I go to fruitlessly search upstairs again. "Flip" (or similarly starting words), there it is, lying in all its indolence on the stairs... I lift the tester and carry it to K's room.

I often have to lance K's finger twice at night. I can't bear to prick her finger so the instrument is held too lightly at first to allow a piercing of her skin. I overcompensate and the 2nd causes a heavy flow. I siphon the necessary blood and the meter calls a 3.6, a normal reading for a non-pancreaticly challenged child but not enough for my daughter.

I break the gluco tabs in half and try to fed then to K. She stirs, heads to the loo (with me ready to leap if she collapses).

K goes back to bed and finishes the glucose tabs I break up and feed to her. I don't think she has woken up at all.

Same time, same place tomorrow night?