Prologue: Warnings

My first day in Sun Prairie didn't exactly go the way I expected

It had been a long day. I had started it by waking up late and then scrambling to throw random things into random boxes and then pushing them out of the room to get taped up by whoever was lucky enough to have snagged a roll. After a quick shower, I took my baby bird, Duke Leto, and my moms cockatiels over to our former next door neighbors for safe keeping while we were in transit of moving things from my dads apartment into the new one that was going to be my new home.

A new home in a state that I considered to be nothing more than a summer vacation spot, in a part of the state that I wasn't too fond of.

Me, lil tiny me, was uprooting myself in every possible way to move 100 miles away. St. Charles, IL to Sun Prairie, WI. It wasn't going to be a complete move for a nearly 3 months since I was going to still be working in St. Charles until the middle of October. I would be living in Sun Prairie for the first half of the week and then working on the weekends in St. Charles.

 

After an hour of going through the house and loading up my SUV, I was on the road for the next two hours up to Sun Prairie. I was happy to be driving my first car, the car I learned to drive in, but with the back and trunk completely full, I was a little nervous about changing lanes, which I had to do often on I-90 and 39, given that the road rarely went from being two lanes and it was one of those roads that no one figured out where they wanted to be and how fast they wanted to go.

 

My mom was driving the newest car in the family, a dark red 2006 Ford Focus... stick shift, ugh! I had the 1998 Ford Explorer, a car I had fallen in love with after I had done a 180 in it and landed in a ditch and then went to an interview where I was handed the job right there. My mom and I have a strangled relationship. My dad calls us twins, which probably explains our behavior, but the truth of the matter is that we are either being more polite to each other than high society or are all but biting each others throats out and there is no middle ground there.

 

When we got to the apartments, we unloaded the cars, which included my mattress to sleep on that night and our three smaller birds that had cages that could fit in the two cars without taking up too much room. We relaxed for a bit, and then she took me over to a restaurent my dad had taken her to, which after looking it over cow eyed, decided that it had to be the best thing ever, especially since it was able to substitute any of its burgers with a veggie burger. After eating, we went to the library and my mom got her library card and then we went back to the apartment, stopping at walmart for random things.

 

It was then that I should have gone on high alert. My mom has diabetes and up until 2 years ago when she slipped into a coma, she had never had any problems. Just as we were getting ready for bed she giggled and sighed. Still in polite mood, I asked her what was up.

"My blood says 59, but the insulin pump says 139"

I was too tired to care, but I should have. Any number under 75 is really bad for diabetics and can lead to comas and death. I fell asleep without thinking too much.

 

A few hours later, I was woken by my moms insulin pump making the most annoying noise I had ever heard it make. I was still too tired from the packing, driving, and unpacking for it to register in my mind that something was wrong. After maybe 20 min of the annoying noise going off I dragged myself out of bed and over to my mom. "Mom... You okay?" It probably sounded like a slurred grunt.

"Yeah... I'm fine... stupid pump." A twittered voice an octavie higher than normal sounded from the darkness I was staring into. I nodded and went back to my bed.

The annoying noise went off again... and again... and again... I wanted to bash my head againist the wall, but I was too tired to drag myself out of bed again to go to any wall. I finally pulled myself back out of bed and over to my mom.

"Are you sure you're okay?" I slurred grunted again.

"Uh... yeah?" The response was. I blinked a few more times before my mind woke up screaming and mentally throttling me. The light came on and I saw my mom, a deer in headlights staring at me as if she had never seen me before. That's when I realized I should have dragged myself over the wall since trying to knock myself out would have knocked some sense into me. The annoying sound was her pump saying she was seconds away from a coma. She needed sugar and fast... and I was still too tired to figure out what to do. I did the only thing I could think of; I called my father to get the damn address to the damn apartment we were now in, since I hadn't thought I would need to know such information for at least another week. Of course, he didn't pick up, so I grabbed the keys and went out to run around the building looking for a number, which I couldn't find. My hands finally figured out what needed to be done. As my mind was still trying to scream, sleep, and throttle me all at once, my hands grabbed an empty glass and poured a glass of juice. I stared at it for a few seconds trying to process anything beyond sleep when it hit me. Juice had sugar... liquids get into the system faster than solids... Give my mom and juice and less than an hour later she would have the sugar she needed and the damn pump would shut up and I could sleep... I gave her the juice and watched as the same thought process flashed across her face as it probably had done on mine. I called my dad and left a message to let him know the reason behind calling him at 1am.

 

It was my first night in Wisconsin as a resident... I shouldn't have been so stupid to think it would have been the most exciting moment.