My husband and I always take our kids to visit our families in South Carolina every Christmas.

In December 2004, we all ended up at my mom’s on Christmas afternoon. My sister, Bonnie, drove down from Charlotte, N.C., and my sister Renee, and her boyfriend, Brad, had just come in from Durham.

Renee was coughing. “I’ve got this cold I just can’t seem to kick,” she said. I’d had pneumonia before, so I suggested she might get that checked out. She sounded pretty bad.

A couple of weeks later my mom called. “Leona, I have some bad news…” I hate it when my mom starts a conversation with those words. I’m always geared up to find out who has passed away. But, what she told me next was almost worse. Renee had gone back to the doctor and had some tests run. She had TB (tuberculosis).

I didn’t know much about TB, but I did know that it could be deadly. Way back in the day, they called it “Consumption” and a lot of people didn’t live through it. I had a mild panic attack about my sister BEFORE my mom handed out even more bad news…Renee had been highly contagious when she was coughing all over us at Christmas. (Sorry, Renee!)

Everyone in the family who had had any contact with my sister during the past month was going to have to be tested for TB. I had to call my local health department and let them know my kids had been exposed. They told us to contact our pediatrician immediately to set up appointments to have the tests done.

I sat the kids down and explained what was happening. They were worried about their aunt, but they also wanted to know what type of test they were going to have to take. I told them it would be a Tuberculin Skin Test, and went immediately to my handy-dandy WebMD to find a good explanation of what it was going to entail. My son, who was seven years old at the time, still didn’t like the idea that they were going to stick a needle under his skin and put something in there.

As a mom, I wasn’t half as worried about the little bit of pain my kids were going to have to endure for the test as I was that they might actually have TB. All sorts of nightmares were running through my mind: “Colton is so little. Can his body take this disease?” “What if one of the girls has it? Will they be able to kick it?” “Even if they kick it, what kind of permanent damage would it do?” Scary, scary thoughts.

I also had to call all the parents of my kids’ friends. If my kids came up positive on the test, they’d then have to have their kids tested. See how this begins to snowball?

We were all on pins and needles the next few days while we waited to see if the tell-tale bumps would appear inside the circles the nurse in our pedi’s office had drawn around the exposed area.

No bumps. Yay!

But, we still had to go have the pediatrician confirm that there REALLY were no bumps so she could alert the Health Department that we were all clear.

Finally, the fear was over on our end. But Renee’s journey was just beginning.

Renee’s story begins with a nagging cough. Read about her scary story here.

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