We get a call from school at around 2:00, and it's not about John, and it's not about Mary. Elizabeth has been unconscious on the locker room floor for at least 5 minutes. We rush her to the doctor, and her blood pressure, sugar, and iron look good. So it's off to the hospital for assorted tests, but by now it's late in the evening and they tell us to come back the next day. We do, and they queue her up for an ekg, an ecg, a chest xray, a cat scan, and more. (Of course we would have none of this if we were one of the 43 million uninsured.) All tests are negative, so the cardiologist falls back on the only remaining diagnosis, vasovagal syncope. This afflicts 0.23% of the population. Veins in the legs open when they shouldn't, and blood pressure falls, and the patient faints. It is an autonomic reflex gone astray. This makes sense, for a hwile, but then I watch her all weekend, and she's fine. Running about and playing like nothing was amiss. Then, on Monday morning, she's dizzy, and faints while sitting in a chair. How can she be fine one day and a wreck the next?
Speaking of chairs, at this point I must pull out my chair and whip and beat back the psychologists in the crowd. "Back, back! It's not psychological. It's not all in her head. She likes school. don't you guys get it?"
Well they've got a hammer, and everything looks like a nail. I suppose I'm guilty of the same thing. I watch her slog through her illness, and then come out of it about noon, as though she had purged something from her system. She jumps back into school and salvages the second half of her day. Then she comes home happy as a clam and plays with her friend down the street. Now I'm ready to swing my hammer, and I hope I'm not pounding on a screw. "It's something she eats!"
I've written about Elizabeth before, her incessant throat clearing and her frequent ear infections. Have we crossed a threshold? Does the offending agent now cause dizziness and fainting? I don't know, but I think this is more plausible than the default diagnosis of vasovagal syncope, for which there is no clear evidence, and no unambiguous test.
Oh the junk she ate on Friday! Pizza and McDonalds and the like. And she was fine all weekend. What could she have eaten Sunday that would cause this reaction on Monday morning? I really don't know, so I'm guessing it's corn, because I reacted badly to corn, and she has half my genes, and she had no corn (to speak of) on Friday or Saturday, and a large helping of corn on Sunday. That's not a great rationale, but it will have to do for now. I decide to keep her off corn for a while, and see where it leads.
We go to Florida for our annual vacation, and Elizabeth is fine. She's not dizzy even once, despite the coasters and spinners at Cyprus Gardens. It looks like I was right on the mark.
Now that's how it's suppose to work. I see a debilitating illness that is destroying a child's quality of life - I observe the patient for a few days - I spot the correlation - she alters her diet - she's fine. That's how it was suppose to work with John too, but his disorder is far more complex, and I have no genetic history to guide me. So after six years we still have a long way to go. Well - at least I can hit a home run when the illness is an easy pitch down the center of the strike zone.
NFF: Actually, the fainting was caused by an infection that lingered for several weeks. Once it cleared up, she ate corn again, and nothing happened.