Panic

Have you ever not totally known what was going on, but you could tell that it wasn’t good by the face on the person in charge? To look at a man, that had inspected every square inch of my child’s body, and see his face go pale, and his eyes bug out, is never good. All he said was, “She’s over 600,” and he left the room.

“What’s he doing?” I had such a confused look on my face.

“She’s definitely got diabetes. She’s higher than I’ve ever seen a child be.”

Susan was speaking quietly, as if she didn’t want Maddie to hear her, or as if it wasn’t going to sting my innermost being to hear her blurt out something so dreadful about my child. She cleaned up from checking Maddie’s blood sugar and left the room.

You know, when you are trying not to cry, and you get that lump in your throat, then it kind of burns your nose, and your eyes well up? You know that feeling? Or when you get in some kind of accident and right as it’s happening, you’re thinking, “Great--wouldn’t you know this would happen to me.” Or what about when something happens, and you know that you can do nothing to change the situation or influence the outcome?

I could hear him in his office through the walls. He was talking too loudly. But I could only make out phrases like, “immediately,” “serious,” and “she’s only 5 years old.” I had forgotten that Maddie was actually sitting there on the bench next to me, or that my mom was in the waiting room with my 18 month old. I just remember staring at the tiles on the floor, wondering what I had done wrong for my beautiful daughter to be sick.

“What’s wrong, Mama?” That’s usually a question that any mother shouldn’t want to answer. What should I tell her? How do I tell her what diabetes is, when I don’t even know what it is? Is it going to go away? How can I fix it? Does she have to go to the hospital? What’s going to happen to my little girl’s life???

“I don’t know, Maddie.”