BUENA VISTA - Fourteen-year-old Alexa Painter was very sick as a baby. How sick is revealed in the 2005 Guinness World Records book, which came out this month.

The Guinness organization determined that as Alexa lay suffering in a Roanoke hospital in 1991, her anguished parents afraid she might die, Alexa posted what is today the highest blood-sugar level known to humankind. Or at least known to the people at Guinness, who have made a business of tracking extraordinary human occurrences and natural-world superlatives since 1955.

At age 2, Alexa developed diabetes and posted a blood-sugar level of 2,495, more than 20 times normal.

Her blood was about one-fourth as sweet as Coke.

"She's probably the sickest child with diabetes that we've taken care of in the 15 years that I've been here," said Dr. Hugh Craft, medical director of the child intensive care unit at Carilion Roanoke Community Hospital.

While friends may wonder whether to congratulate Alexa or say they're sorry, the Buena Vista teen said she feels a mixture of pride and excitement. She loves record books and record museums maintained by Guinness and Ripley's Believe It Not.

Paging through a Guinness book last year, she realized a blood-sugar record existed, but it was at least 100 points below her level. She petitioned successfully for a belated world record title, and now is a bona-fide record holder.

In addition, she hopes that greater awareness about diabetes will spring from her public association with the disease, believed to afflict 18 million people in the United States.

"I want people to be aware it [blood sugar] can go up that high," said Alexa, who may become a diabetes educator when she's older.

She's already prominent among kids her age, having headed the student council association last year at her middle school. She is also a flutist active in performing arts and this month entered high school.

Alexa was a healthy, normal baby until a Saturday night in 1991 when she awoke vomiting, said her mother, Penni Painter. Pediatricians examined Alexa on both of the following two days and then hospitalized her for dehydration. Diabetes hadn't come up.

As her dad, Wayne, waited with Alexa in her room, her mom left to fill out forms. When she returned, she found chaos. A medical worker scooped up Alexa in a blanket and ran off toward what the couple later learned was the intensive care unit.

"The doctor stopped long enough to say, 'You can kiss your daughter,'" Penni Painter recalled.

The bewildered couple was ushered into a room.

"This is serious," a social worker told them.

"No, it's not. It's dehydration," Penni Painter recalled saying.

The couple, who have since divorced, was told that Alexa had diabetes, severe diabetic ketoacidosis, was in a coma and might suffer blindness and brain damage.

Several days later, a nurse discovered Alexa sitting up in a diaper and summoned her parents.

"Hold me, mommy," the child said.

"We picked her up and did not put her down," Penni Painter said.

Brain damage and blindness were ruled out. After three weeks, the child went home to start life anew with an incurable disease.

Because blood-sugar management minimizes complications such as kidney malfunction and limb loss, the family began a routine that continues today of checking Alexa with a glucose monitor.

When young, her parents and school personnel pricked her finger to get a dab of blood. Today, Alexa is an old hand at pricking herself - "diabetes" is nearly worn off her medical bracelet - and operates her own insulin pump, which delivers insulin through a tube into her abdomen.

Nonetheless, her mother sometimes slips into her bedroom at night and draws a sample while Alexa is sleeping, just to be sure. Alexa's fingertips are so calloused, she doesn't wake up.

Friends also play a role in managing Alexa's disease.

"I'm there for her all the time," said 14-year-old Meredith Tolley, who's been trained to administer an emergency glucose injection should Alexa's blood sugar ever drop to an unsafely low level.

Even the family pet shares credit for keeping Alexa's readings on target. Alexa's insulin line came loose one night while she was sleeping, and her blood sugar soared. A chubby stray cat the family had taken in, Mr. Wiggles, awoke her. Thanks to the cat's nibbles on her ear, Alexa said, she caught the problem in time. She thinks the cat somehow knew she was in trouble.

Penni Painter at first had reservations about submitting information to Guinness. "Is this going to make her freakish?" she wondered.

No more. She calls the record "a testimony to Alexa's spirit and determination to fight this illness with courage and a smile."

She is throwing her daughter a pizza party tonight.