Iowa State University Capstones, Theses and Retrospective Theses and Dissertations Dissertations 1997 Needles: a memoir Andrea Lynne Dominick Iowa State University Follow this and additional works at: https://lib.dr.iastate.edu/rtd Part of the Creative Writing Commons, and the English Language and Literature Commons Recommended Citation Dominick, Andrea Lynne, "Needles: a memoir" (1997). Retrospective Theses and Dissertations. 16749. https://lib.dr.iastate.edu/rtd/16749 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Iowa State University Capstones, Theses and Dissertations at Iowa State University Digital Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in Retrospective Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Iowa State University Digital Repository. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Needles: A memoir by Andrea Lynne Dominick A thesis submitted to graduate faculty in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the de!:,rree of MASTER OF ARTS Major: English (Creative Writing) Major Professor: Stephen Pett Iowa State University Ames, Iowa 1997 11 Graduate College Iowa State University This is to certify that the Master's thesis of Andrea Lynne Dominick has met the thesis requirements ofIowa State University Signatures have been redacted for privacy 111 For my parents 1 CHAPTER ONE I know about needles. Growing up, my sister left them everywhere. I filled her syringes with water, transforming them into mini water-guns. I had a diabetic Barbie doll and cooked meals for imaginary diabetic friends. I watched my sister give her shots and when she threw the syringes into the bathroom garbage can, I would grab them. Looking out for my parents, I sat cross-legged on the bathroom floor, removing the orange cap from the syringe and setting the point against the skin on my leg. I longed to insert the needle into my body. I didn't think about how it would feel, but rather how it would look, protruding from mytbigh. I was only in kindergarten, but it seemed like such a natural thing, to give shots. Setting my stuffed animals on my bed and shooting each of them with a syringe full of water before dinner, I told them it would only hurt for a second. They needed to have insulin in their furry bodies if they wanted to eat dinner. We all understood the rules about when they had to have their shots. Pretending their pancreases didn't work anymore, I lined them up and poked them each once with Denise's used syringes. Even though my own pancreas was still secreting insulin, I loved to play with the needles. My older brother and I would have water fights with them after school when my parents were at work. My sister was living at home, finishing her senior year of high school, so we could still dig through the bathroom trash can and find her syringes. The orange caps stood out against the white tissues. Brian filled the kitchen sink with water and I used the one in the bathroom. We met in the living room, doing battle and seeing who could get the other one wetter. I always won. I could run faster. And I had been playing with the needles 2 for years, popping the caps off and pulling the plunger bac~ squirting him twice in the time it took him to hit me once. I knew how to keep bubbles out of the syringes too. With a tap of my finger, I could get them all to the top of the needle, push the air out and be armed with a syringe filled with water. Sometimes my brother would run into the living room, not realizing that he was holding a needle full of air. Brian hadn't been careful enough when he drew the water from the sink. He'd point it at me and only a few drops would dribble out at the end. A big pocket of air in the syringe. The expression on his round face was always one of shock. Like he should have been able to get it right by then. I used to laugh at him. Sometimes I hid my sister's needles in my backpack and took them to school with me. My friends were fascinated by them. We played doctor's office along the fence behind the jungle gym at recess, rolling the syringes between our fingers and carefully pulling off the orange caps. They would stare at the metal tips with wonder. Wonder bordering on horror. We took turns being the physician, diagnosing rare diseases, giving our advice, and administering the injections. Pretend shots. No one wanted to be that close to reality. We had all been to real doctors, and we all associated needles with pain. We were secretive and discrete and never got caught. I told my friends it was just a game anyway. That we couldn't get in trouble because we weren't doing anything wrong. I reminded them that my sister took her needles everywhere with her. But we still kept an eye out for the teachers and sat with our backs to the kids playing on the swings. We pretended we were doctors and patients. Until the bell rang. Then I would slip the syringes into my pocket and head back to class. One time I let a friend take a syringe home with her. She promised to keep it for the night and bring it back the next day. But her mom caught her trying to put the needle into her younger sister's arm after school that day. And when the phone rang in our house in the evening and my mother looked over at me while she listened to the woman on the other end, I knew I was in trouble. When she hung up the phone, her face got red. She told me that I 3 shouldn't be digging in the trash and playing with sharp objects. Not that I shouldn't be taking needles to school or sending them home with other children, but that syringes were too dangerous to be toys. Someone might get hurt. I played these games until I was nine. Until the needles belonged to me. On October 31, 1981, my father asked me to leave some urine in a glass on the bathroom counter. Just pee in the cup and then you can go back outside and play, he told me. My sister had moved into an apartment by then, but she was home for the weekend, sitting on the couch staring at me when my dad told me he wanted to test for sugar. I looked at Denise and knew she was the one who had told Probably made a comment to my dad about how thin I looked, how much water I was drinking, or that I was going to the bathroom all the time. I stared back at her and took the cup from my father's hand. My parents didn't notice how sick I looked, but my sister only saw me every other weekend. Denise noticed. That day she had come over early and we spent the morning in the back yard together. She was teaching me her old high school cheedeading cheers, telling me that if I started practicing now, rd be guaranteed a spot on the squad when I got to Hoover High. The judges would be impressed at how much I already knew. Even though I had six years until high school, I couldn't wait to follow in Denise's footsteps. I was usually excited to practice the cheers, but I didn't have the energy to jump that afternoon. "What's wrong?" she asked. "Just tired. Let's go see a movie," I replied, taking a long drink from the glass of water I seemed to be carrying with me everywhere. "Just one more routine," she said, narrowing her eyes and studying my face. And then I lost my balance when I tried to do a handstand She told me to try it again and she would hold my legs, knowing that I usually had perfect balance on my own. And when I got my legs in the air, she steadied them for me. But my arms buckled and I crashed down on my head 4 I didn't cry. "You hurt, little missy?" she asked, smoothing the hair away from my face. I just stared at her. "Let's do something else. Are you hungry?" I nodded because I was always hungry. Eating all the time and dropping more and more weight, having less and less energy. But I don't think I noticed at the time. It was just how I felt. Normal. Even when I couldn't hold myself upside down and keep my balance, I thought I just needed to practice more. Try harder. I didn't think about my body failing me. Denise tried to take me inside the house, but I told her I wanted to ride my bike for a while first. Alone. So for two hours I slowly rode up and down my parent's driveway. Time passed by quickly on that pavement. Some days in the summer, I would do nothing but ride back and forth, garage to the curb, curb to the garage. I don't remember what I used to think about. But that day I thought about the way my sister had been looking at me when I couldn't do a handstand. Something between disappointment and concern. So I knew she was the one who told my father to test my urine for sugar.