Chapter 3

• Jenny’s POV
• If you Google type 1 diabetes you get this definition:
• A chronic condition in which the pancreas produces little or no insulin. Insulin is a hormone needed to allow sugar (glucose) to enter cells to produce energy.
• The exact cause of type 1 diabetes is unknown. Usually, the body’s own immune system; which normally fights harmful bacteria and viruses, mistakenly destroys the insulin-producing cells in the pancreas. Other possible causes include genetics or exposure to viruses and other environmental factors.
• I, personally, blame it on those other environmental factors, namely living in this depressing town with a sick twisted father.
• Treatment focuses on managing blood sugar levels with insulin, diet and lifestyle to prevent complications.
• After that life altering discovery, my once empty night stand, became filled with different insulin pens, pen needles, alcohol wipes, a glucometer, and snacks.
• I became fully dependent on using insulin four times a day; sometimes more or less doses were required, as my body refused to produce any.
• I had to keep track of my blood sugar continuously through out each day to keep it from getting too low or too high.
• I had to monitor my diet and exercise to keep the condition from further ruining my already mostly ruined life.
• It had already affected my eye sight during those three years.
• I started wearing glasses at 16, and just changed them recently; after turning 18 a few months ago, because my eye sight deteriorated despite wearing the glasses all the time and monitoring my blood sugar levels obsessively. But when you have a life like mine, stress plays a major role in fluctuating those levels despite taking all the possible precautions.
• Other than eye damage, diabetes puts me at risk for heart and blood vessel disease, nerve damage and kidney damage.
• Yeah, my life span was not looking so bright.
• One upside from getting diabetes, I discovered my passion for fitness and exercise.
• It was such a high and release at the same time.
• Since the town didn’t have an actual gym; and the underequipped school gym doesn’t really count, I had to rely a lot on YouTube at first. But gradually, I started combining my own workouts. From HIIT, aerobics, running, to Pilates.
• Zumba also works for me whenever I am not in the mood for something heavy.
• I blast the music I like to listen to through my headphones and get lost in my own world for a while.
• During that time, I don’t live in a depressing excuse of a town, I don’t have any illness, I don’t have a father I always wish he would drop dead at any second, and I have an actual happy long future away from here.
• But all these are just daydreams, I will stay here until the day I die. Just like everyone did in this place. I was forever stuck here. Unable to go anywhere else.
• I graduated high school a few weeks ago. I have nothing to do with my life now. College was out of the question. My father would never let me leave the town on my own to pursue my dreams of studying exercise science. I was stuck here with him until I get married.
• Only then will I leave this house.
• I’d rather leave it a dead body, period.
• Marriage, falling in love… in this town?
• No fucking way.
• Not after what I have seen my mom go through every day with him.
• He ruined all men for me.
• There wasn’t even a single guy worth falling in love with at my high school. None of them attracted my attention even remotely.
• Because whenever I look at any of them, I see only one person, my father.
• I get out of the bathroom and sit on my bed as I check my blood sugar on my smart watch.
• It was a special 24/7 blood sugar monitoring watch.
• It saved me from a lot of poking daily to check my levels with the traditional glucometer.
• I thank whoever invented it a year ago.
• It also served as a reminder to take my insulin shots on time, a calorie intake recorder, a fitness and exercise recorder, and most importantly, it triggers alarms for when my levels get too high or too low in order to intervene on time.
• There is a condition for diabetics called hypoglycemia unawareness, where the blood sugar levels drop too low without causing the usual symptoms; which include sweating, dizziness, feeling hungry, tingling lips, trembling, increasing heartbeat, blurry vision, and anxiousness. My body sometimes doesn’t give me any of those warnings until it’s too late and I pass out from low blood sugar I wasn’t even aware of.
• If that happens when I am alone, it could be fatal. Because I would need to be given an injection of glucagon immediately to raise my levels.
• I always keep an extra shot in my purse at all times just in case.
• That’s where the watch comes in handy.
• As soon as I suspect hypoglycemia, I take a snack containing fast acting carbohydrates; sugary foods without protein or fat that could be easily converted into sugar in the body, like a soft non-diet drink, honey, or candy like jellybeans.
• And as soon as I suspect hyperglycemia (high blood sugar), I inject myself with a fast acting insulin.
• I also keep an insulin pen in my purse for emergencies.
• Diabetes is a complicated disease that always keeps me on my toes.
• My watch states that my levels are currently 130 mg/dl. Which is at the highest normal range. It is always like this in the morning due to sleeping and not taking insulin for a long period. But it was considered okay.
• I rip open a new pen needle, insert the short needle into my insulin pen, remove the cap, set the dosage at 2 units as I prime the pen to get any air bubbles out through the needle by pushing the knob all the way, and then turn the knob again to the required insulin dosage.
• Insulin can be generally given in four areas. The abdomen, front and side of the thighs, upper and outer arms, and buttocks.
• I also need to rotate, or switch, my injection sites. If I use the same injection site over and over again, I may develop hardened areas under my skin that keep the insulin from working properly.
• I lift my shirt up, insert the needle all the way with a quick motion into the skin of my abdomen at a 90 degree angle, and slowly push the knob of the pen all the way in to deliver my full dose. I hold the pen for ten seconds, and then pull the needle out.
• I discard the needle and put the pen cap back in its place.
• I heard the front door open and close with a loud noise, indicating my father’s departure.
• And that’s my cue to get out of the room.
• I try to avoid him at all costs these days because of his increased aggressiveness.
• I walk into the kitchen where I hear mom cleaning the mess he made earlier.
• “What was all that about this time?” I ask her with curiosity.
• I don’t even bother to say good morning to her, there was nothing good about it anyway.
• Her gaze falls to the table in an answer to my question.
• That’s when I notice a wedding invitation almost ripped in half.
• I take it and get a closer look at it.
• It was an invitation to Alex Snow’s wedding, Isaac Snow’s oldest son.
• Isaac Snow, the leader of the Snow clan, has four children. Three sons and one daughter. The oldest one was Alex, followed by Jacob, Lucas, and April.
• I have never met any of them before. I’ve only seen glimpses of the daughter April at my high school. She was seventeen years old, a year younger than me. The boys were all older, that’s why I never ran into them despite living in a small town where everyone knows each other.
• I look up at her in confusion and ask “So he got mad over a wedding invitation? I don’t get it”
• She sighs and says “The wedding is today, I took out the invitation to double check the time of the ceremony so we could get ready beforehand. When he came into the kitchen and saw me reading it, he just flipped out on me. Said we were not allowed to attend this wedding. I tried to ask him why and he started shouting at me in rage and smashed the plate on the floor” she said sadly.
• I raised my eyebrows “Well, apparently the arguments they’ve been having are bigger than we thought”
• I sat down on the chair and started eating breakfast silently as I kept staring at the invitation, while mom was cleaning the dishes at the sink.
• Alex Snow was marrying an outsider. The town was buzzing with this news for the past month, ever since they sent out those invitations.
• It was unheard of, because they never allowed outsiders in. Well, seeing as it is Alex Snow; the next in line to take the leadership after his father, he apparently got to do whatever the hell he wanted.
• I pitied that woman he was marrying from the bottom of my heart; whose name on the invitation said to be Melanie Sullivan. Why would someone willingly want to get stuck here with them, especially them?
• They were a bunch of criminals walking around with guns holstered on their waists all the time. They were a danger magnet. They had a lot of enemies, police aside, that were gunning to take them down and take over their smuggling business for themselves.
• My family wasn’t any better than them when it comes to carrying guns and attracting danger, but at least they weren’t the main target all the time.
• I knew all this from eavesdropping on my father, uncle, and cousin. They sometimes meet here in his office.
• If my father had a son of his own, he would be joining them too.
• I thank god everyday that he didn’t have one. My life was already hell with him breathing down my neck all the time. I can’t imagine what a mini version of him would do to me. I think a part of his hatred towards me and my mother was that we were a disappointment to him. My mom for not being able to have another baby boy, and me for not being the son he always wanted by his side.
• The last time I eavesdropped on their meeting, they were discussing their problem with convincing Isaac Snow to let drugs in before someone else wipes them all out and takes over.
• There was a powerful new player trying to enter the business. A drug lord I assume. He managed to convince my father and uncle to allow him a passage through the town to smuggle his drugs into the US.
• But the final say was to Isaac. And he refused his offer despite the huge amount of money that drug lord was offering to them.
• My father said it was only a matter of time before that drug lord handled Isaac, because the word ‘no’ was not in his vocabulary.
• That last sentence sent shivers down my spine when I heard it, I didn’t know why.
• But what I did know was that the Snows were currently staring down the barrel of a gun.
• And that poor girl who was about marry Alex Snow, will regret ever laying eyes on him, I was certain.
• She either had no clue that she was killing herself by marrying into his family, or too stupid to realize it now.
• But she will definitely figure it out someday, and it will be too damn late for her.