In the beginning ~

[Patti Kirkpatrick]

Maxine today at 17 years of age. On August 18th 1998 at 3pm in the afternoon I was told that Maxine had a deadly disease called Type 1 Diabetes. This call came in about 2 hours after a kindergarten physical when Maxine climbed off the exam table and said she had to "potty". Nothing unusual about a skinny little 5 year old needing to go to the bathroom. After all, it was 104 degrees outside, we had been gulping bottled water and neither of us could seem to quench our thirst. As Maxine was being ushered to the bathroom the doc said "hey, being as she's in there why don't we get a urine sample too". No big deal, I had just graduated from my first year of nursing and dipping a urine "keto" stick into her sample of urine was the least scariest intervention the doctor could do on this day of prodding and blood pressures, temp and all of the essential doctor assessments needed for a pediatric visit.

We came back into the exam room after the potty break and the doc left the room to go wait for the result of this very simple little test. About 5 minutes later the doc waled back into the exam room where Maxine and I were now looking at a book and the doc sat down. She looked at me and said "Well, everything looks good except one thing".

Let's just stop there because that's when my heart felt like it stopped. Deep in my inner gut I knew the words "one thing" was wrong. I had 3 older children and no doc ever said "one" thing. I felt an extreme anxious root take place in my chest and I belted out the words "What do you mean ONE thing?" The doc looked at me with compassion and calmly said "Maxine is spilling 3+ ketone into her urine" The highest amount of sugar a test this simple could rate. Numb and my new nursing mind racing while my Mother's heart feared the worst I replied; "Why?". Well Patti said the doc in her kind tone, it could be her kidneys, maybe diabetes or just a bad test strip. Okay, my mind immediately rationalized that God no not her kidneys, surly NO diabetes because there was no history of diabetes anywhere in either side of our families, so diabetes was definitely out. So... it was the test strip! I knew it. Small town, dusty supplies, it was the rotten no good test strip, thank God.

The doc then tells me that in order to confirm that there is nothing more serious going on with Maxine that we needed to go over to the hospital lab and have Maxine's blood drawn. This I knew would be traumatic in itself and I readied to make the horrible experience a better one in the best way I could... I would think of something. Off we went to the lab with the Doc's blessings and her promise to call me as she was going to put a "STAT" on the blood test". Stat... Oh yes, I knew what that meant because in nursing school they talked about doctor's order's and there were certain circumstances when a test was very serious and a STAT meant RUSH now. My anxiety just ripped into my lungs and abdomen. Haylie was trying to pick flowers on our walk over to the lab and this once I told her no that we needed to "STAT" it not realizing that I was saying nonsense to her and if not careful I would transfer my horrible anxiety to her. I stopped and put Maxine down and struggled to smile and help her pick the best most beautiful flower we could find. Tears were close but I knew, I just knew it was that damn "bad" test strip.