Tyler is fine and Healthy

But it was kind of an open question there, for a while.

I didn’t want to get everyone worked up, but Tyler’s second round of blood tests, about two weeks ago, came back abnormal. They were worried he might have something called MCAD which would have meant, in short, that if he didn’t eat for more than about 6 hours, he could die.

It’s a genetic disease, common among ‘northern europeans’ (I’m not sure if that means Brits or Scandinavians) and according to the literature usually doesn’t have any long-term problems, it’s just the eating thing. The baby gets sick and doesn’t eat for a few hours and the prognosis can be quite bad if they don’t get on some IV nutrients very quickly, and because it’s so rare, most people don’t know their kids have it until it’s too late.

Even at first prognosis, though, we didn’t think he had it. He’s always been alert and vital when he wakes up (anyone who has heard him really get going behind a good cry will attest to that.) He’s had no problems getting up and moving even after quite long sleep sessions. Still, due to the seriousness of the disease, they wanted to be sure, and so they brought him in for another round of testing, both urine (hard to collect on a baby, let me tell you) and more blood. (He has such unhappy face when he gets needled!) We just got a call back from the doctor today that the preliminary tests looks negative, though they’ll do some more just to be extra-sure (serious disease, remember?)

That’s enough for us, though, to qualify him as totally free and clear. We’ll let him sleep as much as he wants, now.

-N