Ben's Medical Adventures

Ah, Ben. He's not a boring child. He's a generally healthy kid, but he does have more than his fair share of odd medical interventions... like when he aspirated a Lego... or when his own framed picture fell from the wall and sliced him right between the eyes...

Not boring.

The past few months have brought us another round of medical adventures with Ben. In December he started losing vision for a few minutes at a time. It happened once or twice a week, seemingly randomly.

We've been through some scary worst case scenarios, an MRI, EKG, several specialists, and a whole lot of fainting spells and as of Thursday we think we finally have it all figured out - it turns out our kid is just allergic to standing up. At least, that's how I translate "orthostatic intolerance," right?

Apparently this isn't an uncommon thing to happen during adolescence, Ben's symptoms just came on in a way that led us down the (incorrect) ophthalmology and neurology route first.

Basically what happens is that when he stands up, his autonomic nervous system doesn't compensate effectively for the gravitational shift and he gets tingly hands and feet followed by muddy vision and hearing and culminating in syncope or near-syncope (passing out).

There are lots of silver linings here, especially compared to all the scary stuff we were concerned could be going on. Treatment is pretty simple, he's learning to recognize when it's coming on so that he can sit down until it passes, and he should outgrow it in a few months or years.

Plus he has cool photos of his brain to show for the ordeal.

Thanks to everybody who has been praying for and with us through the past few months. Your care and support has meant so much.

And on the up-side, we've already met our deductible for the year! Free doctor's appointments for all!