Chapter Thirty-One

One day, suddenly, after nothing for so long, her blood sugar is down. Not all the way, but a good 100 points down, and I stare at the meter. For the first time in two months, the numbers really are going down.

"What's wrong?" Ashley is stronger now, and curious about what's going on with all the doctors and injections and testing. She's sitting straight up today, writing emails to her friends because we got her texting bill last month and took away the phone.

"I need to do it again. I think I made a mistake." She offers her hand out to me without question and goes back to typing, one handed. I wash her fingers off with a washcloth, dry them thoroughly, and prick her again. The meter blinks. 5. . .4. . .3. . .2. . .1. . .

281.

Five months ago that would have meant nothing to me. Three months ago that would have been a bad number. Today it is so good it makes me want to cry.

Ashley glances up and sees my face and closes the laptop instantly. "What is it?"

I show her the meter, barely able to keep the smile off my face.

"What was it last night?"

"395."

She searches my eyes, as if asking for permission to believe what this seems to mean.

I nod. "It's working," I say, almost in a whisper because I'm afraid that to say it out loud is to give us unfounded hope.

"Could it be the insulin?" She takes out the pump again and looks at it, as if it will blink the answer in digital code.

"It's the same amounts of insulin you've been getting for weeks."

"So. . ."

"So it's you." I give her a hug. At first she is limp in my arm, but slowly the realization hits her, and she wraps her arms around me. I feel hot tears hitting my shoulder. Without sound, the tears come faster and faster until her entire body is heaving.

"It's over, isn't it?"

I hold her tight, not wanting to say anything. I don't know if it's over. I don't know what this means, but for the first time I dare to hope.

A knock at the door interrupts us, and we both wipe tears as Dr. Van Der Campen walks in. He stops in the doorway and crosses his arms over his chest. "And I see we have another success."

"Another?"

"It's day five after the first transfusion. The same day both of the other two patients began making their own insulin."

"So it's true?"

"Well, let's see." He asks Ashley to test her blood again. Her hands are shaking so hard she can't get the tiny strip into the meter, and it falls to the floor. I throw it away, take out another, and put it in for her. She pricks her own finger and squeezes the blood out. She hands the meter to Dr. Van Der Campen, who holds it while it beeps five times, counting down.

278.

"I'd say that looks like success."

"I'm cured?"

Dr. Van Der Campen holds out his hands. "Let's not get ahead of everything." He pulls a chair up beside the bed and motions me to sit too. "This process isn't an instant thing. We may not know for a long time what the final outcome of this is. It may take a long time for your pancreas to totally take over regulating your own insulin. And your own immune system might attack it again. We can't know for certain what's going to happen."

"But. . ." I say, waiting for him to say something positive.

"But, for now, this is very good."

"It's good?" Ashley asks.

"Very, very good." He finally smiles, one of the few I've seen from him.

"So we can celebrate?" I ask.

"I'd say we should all celebrate," he answers. "Where's the rest of the family?"

"They went to throw some hoops in the courtyard. I'll call them." I take out my phone, but Ashley holds her hands out.

"Let me." I hand it to her, and she hits the redial button and waits for the ring. Her face is glowing, the faintest hint of color in her cheeks: something I haven't seen in a long time. I can tell when Travis answers because she smiles even wider. "Daddy? I've got good news." I can hear him whoop through the phone, and she holds it away from her ear, the sound of both Travis and Logan coming through the phone.

"We'll be right there," he yells.

By the time they burst through the door breathless, Dr. Van Der Campen has brought in a round of little plastic tubs of sugar-free jello for each of us to toast. For Ashley this is truly a treat: she's eaten almost nothing since our doomed campout except for some broth. She picks the red jello and peals back the tin foil, digging her spoon deep into it and watching it wobble. The rest of us grab one and open it, even Dr. Van Der Campen joins in, and soon we all have the slimy substance, holding the spoons out towards each other.

"To you, Ashley, and a life free of diabetes!"

We all toast and eat, Logan and Travis huddling around Ashley. The excitement in the room is almost as electric as lightening. I watch Dr. Van Der Campen, and he seems like he might just burst with pride. When he slips out of the room I follow.

"Dr. Van Der Campen?" He stops and turns around.

"Jack. You can call me Jack, Babs."

What do I say? How can I possibly put into words what it means, what he has just done? In this constant shifting sand that is our lives, he gave us something to stand on.

"You're welcome," he says, smiling as if he knows.

"It's working for the others, too?" He nods. "Are there others after Ashley? You said maybe twenty or thirty in this phase of the trial."

"Not yet. The press hasn't exactly been flattering. Sometimes that stops people from flocking to a new trial. But they'll come." He smiles a kind of sad smile. "There will always be people like you--people who need it enough to brave the bad press because there are no other options."

I remember the newspaper articles and the rally posters with the angry red slash across his face. I don't even know the name of his little girl, but I know exactly how desperate he must have felt.

"Like you did?"

"Like I did."

The hall is unusually quiet, no nurses rustling about in their over-starched scrubs, no stretchers or visitors. Hardly a sound except the sound of celebrating from the door behind me. His eyes are a mix of emotions, and I realize what it is. Ashley's life, this miracle today, came at the cost of his own daughter. If she hadn't died, we wouldn't be here.

Suddenly, my heart is so full of gratitude and love and relief it feels too heavy for my chest. I take a step, and then another, and then another until I am within a breath of Jack. And I put my arms around him.

"Thank you," I say.

It takes a moment for him to hug me back, but when he does it's as full of pain as it is with happiness. He lets go and turns quickly, walking away before I can say anything else.

~~~~

We test Ashley's blood every fifteen minutes. She can't wait, hoping to see it plunge, but it's a gradual process. The nurses bring her food, little things mostly, liquid foods to get her stomach used to food again, and she crosses her fingers when she tests afterward. The numbers go up slightly, but they come back down, and in five more days, they are remaining steady around 95.

The difference in Ashley is amazing. She's up and around again, most of the IVs removed, and she insists on taking showers and wearing her own clothes. We take walks around the hospital halls, slow and short at first, her legs weak and her breathing hard until they gradually grow longer. When Dr. Jack approves it, we take short walks outside. Her immune system is slowly building again, and we shed our masks, then the gloves, and finally the scrubs we have come to feel as comfortable in as our own skin.

During the days, Logan and Ashley sit on her bed and work on schoolwork. This is the compromise I've worked with the schools. Before we came out I explained to the principals that we'd be gone for the beginning of the school year, that Ashley was terribly sick and that Logan wanted to be with her. They organized a sort of home-schooling/ internet option for him to cover the weeks we'd be gone.

So now that Ashley is stronger, they study together, and Dr. Jack even sometimes comes in and sits for a few minutes to look at the math and science and offer help. He's taken Logan out for lunch several times, and I think they're forming a great relationship that is just as good for Dr. Jack as it is for Logan.

I leave them on the bed studying and head out to the snack machine. A woman is already there, banging her palm against the glass and swearing.

"Can I help?" When she turns around there are tears on her face. She wipes them off, embarrassed. "I can't seem to get it to come out."

I ask which ones and put in more money and push the buttons. The spiral moves and drops two bags of chips. I reach in and pull them out for her.

"Thanks," she says.

"Are you new here?"

She nods. "Son or daughter?"

"Father," she says. "Alzheimer's."

"You're not the first to wrestle with that machine. The one on the first floor works better. But the coffee on the third is better. I think it's their attempt to keep you from getting too flabby from sitting in hospital rooms all day waiting."

She smiles a little, and I'm glad I stopped to help.

"Thanks," she says. "I'll remember that. You been here long?"

I shrug. A lifetime, it seems. Was there life before this? "A couple months."

"Wow. That's a long time. Why are you here?"

"My daughter has diabetes." I say this but then think of her sitting on the bed right now, the last of the IVs taken out this morning, Max the pump packaged back in the box, the blood tests showing normal insulin production. "She had diabetes, I mean."

"But now she doesn't?"

"No. Now she doesn't." I watch these words take effect. I see in her eyes the possibility of her dad regaining his memory of her, of their past together. A few months ago I wouldn't have known what it was I saw in her eyes, but today I know what it is, because I have found it too.

It's hope.

~~~~