Little Yella Critter

We had to leave Eli at the hospital. Jaundice they called it. AB-O Incompatiblity they concluded, and their Photolight Theraphy the only cure.

Whatever happened to good old plain sunlight? It worked in my day. When I was a kid they didn't have any of that high-tech mish-mash that was supposed to be good for you, for whatever high-tech ailment you were supposed to have. In my day, mothers held babies up to the first morning light and loaded the kids with a good dose of Scott's Emulsion. The doctor kept away for damn sure.

I am venting my spleen here. And sorely missing my son. It doesn't help that the Newborn Screening results...yes, they have that now...found Eli positive for G6PD Deficiency. We didn't have that in my day either. Now, they tell me Eli can't have any soy or soy products, all sorts of legumes, certain medications, red wine(!), ad nauseum... or he'll end up with hemolytic anemia. (Oh, please... he hasn't even started on breastmilk yet and I'm supposed to be worrying about his impending solid food intake?)

And among other things, if he, by some fortuitious event, partook of any of the above-mentioned prohibited victuals, Eli would be the unlucky recipient of headaches, nausea, palpitation, seizures. I read the photocopy-generated symptom sheet and nearly had a seizure myself.

I read up as much as I could over the internet, and found G6PD deficiency is an inherited enzyme malfunction affecting nearly 400 million people worldwide (egads! We are not alone.)

Carrying the hefty moniker glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase, it is one of the many enymes that help the body process carbohydrates, turning them into energy. It also protects red blood cells during the onset of infections (does this mean my son will grow to be a listless little boy with no immune system whatsoever?). Without sufficient G6PD to protect red blood cells, they become damaged or destroyed, and hemolytic anemia occurs when the bone marrow cannot compensate for this destruction by manufacturing more red blood cells.

Certain triggers of such as fava beans, napthalene balls, and some malarial medications ending in 'quine' can cause paleness (hard to tell if I have a dark-skinned kid), extreme tiredness, rapid heartbeat, shortness of breath, jaundice, enlarged spleen and tea-colored urine. On the plus side, once these triggers are removed, the symptoms disappear within a few weeks as new red blood cells are formed.

Can't I have a kid without complicated health issues? Like Atch and myself, Woog has asthma. And now here comes Eli wth a deficiency of his glucose-6-whatchamacallus.

*Sigh* The hospital nursery called and told me he'd been crying his head off. Perhaps I could try to breastfeed him? So we visited Eli during his confinement. I met my son at the Breastfeeding Room and I held him close to me, examining in minute detail the cradle cap on his eyebrows, his pimple-like milia, his potato nose...everything that wasn't bundled up in swaddle cloth. Mr. Hideous himself.

He didn't look yellow to me. Why were they making sure I got so damn worried? My son is normal. Heaps of kids didn't get newborn-screened (this inhuman pricking of tender baby skin and the cruel drawing of baby blood from a screaming red-faced infant), or been diagnosed with G6PD Deficiency. They lived. At least they did in my day.

And Eli will live. The best life we can possibly give him. Just as thirty-eight years ago, my parents-in-law refused to give up on Atch when he was a Coke bottle-sized seven-month preemie, just as we refused to let Woog's asthma get in the way of his extremely active lifestyle...Eli will thrive. I'll make sure of it.

July 2006