Don't give me lip.

My eighth grader diabetic is everything stereotypical teenager. She knows everything, and everyone older than her is just totally embarrassing. I think I get along with teenagers pretty well usually, I've been told I'm "cool" by plenty of their own and have a fair amount of experience with them after working at a weight loss camp for teenagers this summer. But this girl has been a challenge more than I can deal with. I've mentioned some of this before, but since she was diagnosed six weeks or so ago she has: forgotten her meter, forgotten her insulin, taken 14 units of insulin and then changed her mind about eating, and on a whim decided she was independent and didn't check in with me - I had to go hunt her down. I decided to embarrass the heck out of her that day by waiting for her in her fifth period class after lunch, and after a stern lecture about how I make a trip to that school just to check in on her and my time isn't free, I thought I got the point across. She didn't make that mistake again...until today. Today they had a minimum day, and it was optional for them to stay through lunch. The two days she decided to come to school this week I explained that if she decided she would stay for lunch I would come check in on her - but I was making a special trip for her and she needed to be sure she was eating. She assured me she was staying for lunch, but it wasn't a surprise to me when she didn't show up in the office. I had the attendance clerk do an all-call just to embarrass her one more time and she came down to the office; she had to pick up her insulin anyway. She looked pale - it was a hot day and they were having a field day so she'd been out running around, and it was after her normal lunch time. I asked if she was eating lunch on campus, she said no, I said to check her blood sugar anyway. She said she felt "fine" and, oh yeah, "I need my glucagon." I told her that, as I had told her all week, and in the weeks prior, her mom would sign it out. In response, in the most spiteful teenage tone, "She don't get signal at work." For any other kid I would probably have given them the glucagon to take home, because I'm one of those people that bend the rules on occasion - but not if you're disrespectful and rude toward me, wasting my time. I stood firm, knowing her older sister can come get it at any time, and she glared at me as she strode back to her watching friends.

I'm sure she gave me attitude because her friends were watching - it was the first time she's ever been outrightly rude toward me - but whatever the reason, I will not put up with it. Then again, I'm not sure what kind of nurse I am when I try to exert my "power" by withholding her emergency medication (that really, I don't trust her with anyway). It was her last day today, and I have to say I feel a bit of a failure for not ending that on a better note with her. Afterward, I called the nurse who will have her next year at high school to give her a heads up on the attitude and irresponsibility headed her way. "Tag, you're it!"

Assuming she makes it through the summer, willy-nilly-ing her way through insulin dosing, that is.