Friday, March 9, 2018

Teenage biology...and chemistry...

Whattya say we cover something a little different today, hmm? Such as, for instance, the murky, intriguing realm of..."Medical Mysteries"--which is one that Team WestEnders rarely has occasion to venture into, fortunately. I mean, we counted ourselves super-lucky and grateful that we escaped the Great Pertussis Outbreak of 2018 unscathed. And (so far) none of us have fallen victim to this year's particularly nasty flu virus (excuse me for one second while I knock on wood...and offer thanks to the....I don't know, Patron Saint of Immunity? Sure, we'll go with that...)

So yeah, we've been enjoying a lovely reprieve from the usual seasonal maladies. However, before we could celebrate being out of the proverbial...Winter woods, if you will...Riley suddenly began complaining about his legs feeling exhausted. Now, this is somewhat to be expected, with his busy, demanding soccer schedule of 90-minute practices 3 times a week, and 1 or 2 matches on weekends. But he explained that he felt more fatigued than he considered "normal", or than he should be. Then I remembered that for a month or so, he'd also been mentioning how cold he feels, and how difficult it's been for him to get--and stay--warm.

This detail by itself might not trigger any alarm bells on the Maternal Scale of Concern...except that this is the kid we always used to call our part-polar-bear. The one who--regardless of the current weather conditions--was comfortable at all times, and dressed accordingly in the least possible amount of lightweight clothing. Now he expressed irritation at the fact that he felt chilly more often than not, and couldn't seem to keep his hands from freezing at his team workouts.

Let's see....tired during exercise...unable to maintain body heat...this was starting to sound suspiciously familiar...taking me back to around 2010, when I was experiencing similar symptoms... and subsequent testing revealed that I had extremely low iron. This wasn't a huge surprise to me, since it was true of my own mother as well. Add to that Husband's side of the family...where he and his mom also have a tendency toward anemia....and I figured poor Riley was pretty much screwed on both genetic sides of the Fe-front.

All of this amounted to mere speculation and quasi-educated guessing, of course, until we got professional confirmation. So we made an appointment to talk with the boys' physician and gather his thoughts about the whole situation. Dr. W listened intently to the entire saga, asked probing questions, and eventually agreed that taking a blood sample and ordering some labs would be the logical next step to figuring out what was happening.

(Side note: one of his queries was "Have you done any traveling lately?" delivered with what seemed like almost feigned nonchalance. I laughed and replied, "I know where you're going with this, but we did NOT visit any exotic places over the holidays, so while I'm sure you're secretly hoping for another thrilling botfly incident, you can just forget about it, thankyouverymuch!" He grinned and admitted, "I felt like I needed to be thorough and ask about African Sleeping Sickness...just in case!" Oh, good grief...nothing like being a weird medical celebrity at your pediatrician's practice, yeah? Siiighhhhh...)

Next, a semi-traumatic...phlebotomy event...ensued, involving 3 nurses, 1 of whom seemed to know exactly what she was doing, but was using Riley as a guinea pig to teach the others, resulting in the necessity for multiple jabs with the needle, in order to obtain the required vials of blood. Then there was nothing left to do but go home and wait for the doctor to contact us and explain the magic numbers from the test results, which would hopefully illuminate what was causing Riley's discomfort and give us a course of action to remedy it.

Sure enough, I received an email a couple of days later, with a full report....containing what, to me, appeared as a list of random acronyms with no explanations, and corresponding numerical values that meant absolutely nothing to me. Um...yay? Happily, before I applied myself to Googling each and every item for clarification, Dr. W followed up with a much more helpful phone call, in which he indicated that Riley's iron is, in fact, completely within normal limits (Excellent!)...but his liver enzymes and thyroid hormones were low, for some reason. (What the WHAT?) He hypothesized that sometime recently, Riley may have been exposed to a virus, which didn't even cause him noticeable symptoms, but which prompted his system to fight it off, nonetheless.

Huh. Well, as a parent, I've gotta say, I find the uncertainty and murkiness of this news...partially fascinating...while also a wee bit terrifying. Soooo anyway, how do we treat it? Dr. W assured me that sometimes thyroids "just get a little bit out of whack" (which I'm sure is the most up-to-date technical term used by respected physicians everywhere), and we may not ever be able to ascertain the specific reason, but we can give Riley a low dose of thyroid hormone for a month, and see if it makes him feel better.

Alrighty, then. Operation Thyroid Kick-Start has commenced. We're about halfway in, and Riley reports that he's doing better, and already noticing a marked improvement in his energy levels. Furthermore, he's still managing his full sports schedule, without having to miss any team....stuff, which is important to him as well. Sometime in the next 2-4 weeks, we'll have another face-to-face with Dr. W...and a hopefully smooth-and-painless repeat blood draw...and find out that all of the rebellious hormones and enzymes and whatnot have just as paradoxically decided to leap back into the optimum range.

In the meantime, what do you think the Patron Saint of Immunity would like as a tribute? Perhaps a nice big jar of...Nyquil? Ooooh, or to make it more challenging, and therefore meaningful, maybe something with pseudoephedrine, since you have to show your license and get that from behind the pharmacy counter these days? Ha! To remain in their continued good graces, I'm willing to give it a shot...

No comments: