Busted.

Spitfire came to my office around lunchtime saying her blood sugar was 471 and her mom wanted her to go home. This is normal these days: kids bypass me using their cell phones and clue me in once everything is arranged. She said she needed a new pump site (which I showed her we had with her bag of extra supplies) and her mom wanted to take her to the doctor's, so she arranged for (one of) her mom's ex-husband's to come get her. 

When the ex-husband arrived, he had a new pump site in hand. I asked if that's all that needed to happen, because,  clearly, I had been left out of the loop. I explained that I had already told Spitfire we had the supplies to change her pump site, but she was obviously hoping to get picked up from school. He was firm with her in expressing his disappointment, and explained that she would be staying at school. She and I changed her pump site while the ex-husband waited. 

Afterward, she checked her blood sugar. It was 141. I looked directly at the ex-husband and commented that it was quite remarkable for her blood sugar to drop 300 points in half an hour with a malfunctioning insulin pump. We asked her to show us the history in her pump meter to, and, unsurprisingly, found no 471. Ex-husband said to her he would deal with the matter later, and left very politely. 

Spitfire sat quietly eating in my office, unable to make eye contact with me. Finally, I broke the silence and said, "Busted." She looked at me with anger, claiming that it really was 471 and her meter was broken. Um...No. 

I have been working with her since she was in 3rd grade; she's now in 6th grade and never have I seen her as mad today as when I called her out for lying about her blood sugar. Our relationship is coming to an end in a couple of weeks and while I am sad that I know she will hold a grudge about this for some time, perhaps the rest of my time with her, hopefully one day she'll look back and see that she needed some tough love.