Page 63 of The Happiness Blueprint
You’re a brilliant, intelligent woman. I can’t understand how you can’t remember four digits for five minutes?Alex had told me. And what did Saga say, again?Harry is a brilliant little boy, but he just won’t follow simple instructions.The similarity of the comments is suddenly obvious to me.
“I have to go, Mum.”
“We only just started talking, honey.”
“I know it’s only been—” I glance at the time “—eight minutes. But I can’t talk anymore.”
“Klara, we thought we did the right thing. Not adding another diagnosis. I’m sorry if it wasn’t the right choice.”
Mum desperately wants a response from me, but I need some time. I block Nonstop Notifications. I remove them all from my Dexcom app. I feel alone. I turned off the data.They can’t even see my blood sugar now. I’m hot suddenly, like I’ve sat in a sauna for too long, and the only way to return to normal is to jump in a pile of snow.
I walk over to the kitchen and open the freezer. I put my whole head inside, breathe it in. Then I place a bag of frozen peas against my chest. It burns and stings.
And I think, if someone asked me who I am, I wouldn’t have an answer.
Sometimes, when I can’t sleep, I lie awake and think of all the things Google doesn’t know. Like the sound of my grandfather’s voice. My feelings when Saga’s height surpassed mine. The smell of my childhood car. They are all the things I have in my soul. Google has no answers for questions about effort, worth, desire or character, all things we have inside us. Who I am and who I want to be, that’s one of those questions, and one I need to answer myself, apparently.
Me: Who am I?
Google: A better question to ask yourself is How would I like to experience my life?
Me: Please go ahead and explain.
Google: There is no plausible answer. Because our being is not a fixed thing. The emphasis shouldn’t be on discovering who you are but on facilitating what you’d like to experience. Identity should be seen as an ongoing process, a flowing sense of self. How different would life be, Klara, if rather than asking who you are, you contemplated how you’d like to engage life.
Okay, I added my name in there, but I feel like Google and I are on a first-name basis now, considering we have been going strong since, well, the creation of Google or me coming of age to use it. Whichever came first.
Saga has driven to Ystad to spend the night with an old school friend. Dad is not hungry, doesn’t have any appetite. I don’t have any either, but I eat out of habit and need rather than want more often than not. I can’t justify using up the ingredients for the meal I had planned—baked salmon—for just one person, so I proceed to take a single-serving broccoli quiche from the freezer. I bolus my insulin while the food is in the oven and have a quick shower. It’s not until it’s in front of me on a plate, some leaves of arugula balancing on top, that I realize I won’t be able to eat it. It’s physically impossible. I wrap it in cling wrap, place it in the fridge, and go to bed.
I should be an expert at this by now, but the truth is, all these years and I have never actually passed out. Alex is sitting next to me, and there is a second man, who I immediately recognize as a paramedic. Okay, how bad is it? I think. I mean to say it out loud, but it turns out I have just thought it. I try again. Alex leans down.
“Wait. There is no need to talk. Five more minutes won’t hurt.” Then he looks me in the eyes and sees that they are two big question marks and starts to tell me.
“You had a bad hypo. I didn’t want to interfere, but the alarm kept going off, and after a while I just said fuck it and drove over. I hope that’s okay?” Oh, it’s more than okay, I want to tell him. “Did the app lose its Bluetooth?” I close my eyes. Guilty.
“It’s okay, Klara. I’m here.” My dad’s voice comes from the corner of the room.
“Let’s get you sitting up, shall we,” the man with the green medical uniform says, gently placing a hand behind my neck to guide me. I sit up and feel as if I have been run over by a train. I’m handed an orange-flavor juice box with a straw.
“Here. Let me.” Alex feeds me the juice, and it’s about the nicest thing I’ve ever drunk. I feel like myself more with each sip. I’m noticing that Alex is rubbing my lower back. I don’t mind it. There is a sucking noise as the carton empties, as if it’s breathing in rapidly. I continue sucking at the straw even though I’m positive I’ve finished every last drop.Don’t move away.
Ambulance Man speaks.
“Right. If you are well enough to be walking, we don’t have to bring you into hospital for a check.”
Alex looks as if he’s just been told he’s won a million pounds.
“I left the alarm for about two hours, then I couldn’t stand it. Your dad hadn’t locked the door, luckily, as he didn’t wake up when I knocked.”
“He never does.Nothing to steal and no one worthy to kidnap, he always says.”My voice, that was my voice. It’s back!
I am alert enough to check my own blood sugar and take a sigh of relief when it’s no longer low. I am ready for all the attention to go away.
“We can bring you with us for a general checkup if you would like,” Ambulance Man says. “But since you are diabetic, we know why you collapsed, and now that you are better there’s no real need to have you taken in. You must make an appointment with your doctor, though. There may need to be some adjustments in your doses to prevent this from happening again.” I don’t tell him that I know why it happened, that it was because I made supper and gave myself insulin for a meal I never ate. That I cut my family off my app like a grumpy child, risking my life in the process.
“I’m okay, thanks. I’m going home in two weeks and will be under the surveillance of my regular endocrinologist,” I say. “Who is very good,” I add to Alex, as he has a strange look on his face, which I interpret as suspicion toward English medical professionals.
Ambulance Man notes this down and packs his bag.
