Another set of eyes

With 13 children, the Patton family already has a packed house. But they soon will add another family member to their Chelsea home. This time, however, it’s of the four-legged variety, when 4-year-old Chloe Patton gets a service dog to help with her Type 1 diabetes.

Chloe received a healthy report at her 4-year-old checkup in January, so it came as a shock when less than two months later, she was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes. The 12th of 13 children, she is the first affected by the condition. 

She began feeling ill one weekend in March, and by the following Tuesday had felt so bad that her father, Michael, took her to the pediatrician. Chloe’s blood sugar was 444, and she immediately was sent to Children’s of Alabama. By the time she arrived, her blood sugar had passed 600.

“She was urinating a lot, constantly thirsty and very lethargic,” Michael Patton said. “All the signs and symptoms were there. I’m a paramedic, and I never put the signs together.”

For the next two days, the Pattons were given a crash course in diabetes. The autoimmune disease is not preventable, predictable or curable, and anyone can develop it at any time. They said they are thankful to be so close to Children’s of Alabama, where Chloe’s doctors are. 

“It was very overwhelming,” mother Riki Patton said. “We decided we were going to be positive and make the diagnosis fit into our family. We’d make it a new lifestyle of eating healthier and portioning food. We aren’t isolating Chloe. All in all, everyone has taken this as a positive step forward.” 

Chloe has responded well to her new normal, learning to count carbs and doing her own finger pricks. But there are 10 other children at home, and Michael Patton works two 24-hour days out of every three (and up to 120 hours per week). Even though Riki Patton home-schools year round, the couple said they realized they could use more help monitoring Chloe’s blood sugar. 

They said they began researching diabetic alert dogs, and found that one typically costs between $10,000 and $20,000.

The couple found out about K-9 Specialty Services of Alabama. This 501(c)(3) organization, only funded by contributions, trains and donates service dogs. After talking with owners Les and Kathy Brown, the Pattons will be getting a 6-to-9-week-old dog in mid to late August.

The dog will need to be with Chloe at all times and will recognize when her blood sugar levels are too high or too low through its sense of smell. The dog can then alert Chloe and her parents through a trained response. 

“The dog will give Riki another set of eyes and a well-trained nose to monitor Chloe’s blood sugar levels,” Michael Patton said. “With all of the activity going on at our home, this dog will serve as a very valuable asset for Chloe’s good health.”

With the high cost of the dog, Michael Patton organized a Memorial Day fundraiser selling Boston butts smoked by members of the Bessemer Elks Lodge. He also set up a GoFundMe page for donations. 

The family said it will continue its fundraising efforts, and use money raised to donate to K-9 Specialty Services to pay it forward.

“We will make both monetary donations to them, and we will start helping them train and get their name out,” Michael Patton said. “We will try to help other families that are in need of a service dog by these donations. The training of the dog will be donated to us by Les and Kathy and will require Riki to learn how to train the dog as well. In turn, Riki can help train other dogs with them.”

“This is something to give my daughter safety and my wife peace of mind while I’m gone,” he said. 

Riki Patton said asking for charity for a dog may seem like a luxury, but with their style of life, it isn’t. 

 “We are willing to pay forward,” she said. “If we could do something for someone else, other people in similar situations, we’d be glad to.”

To donate, visit the “Chloe’s Diabetes Service Alert Dog” GoFundMe page.