We have a lot going on right now, and I chose to post about the good things first, but there's some other stuff we're dealing with that isn't so good.
I mentioned that Will has been feeling badly for months now and he went in for some bloodwork. Last Friday around 8AM we got a call from his doctor's office saying they wanted him to come in to talk about his blood test results this morning. Could he come in around 9?
Of course my stomach dropped to my feet. I helped him get ready to go, and then desperately tried to keep myself busy until he called to let me know what was up. I tried to ignore the fact that we'd gotten the call as soon as the doctor's office opened and that they wanted to see him ASAP. Probably not Mono, then. I tried not to let my mind wander to possible explanations that made me panic to the point where I felt like I just wanted to hug myself and rock.
When Will did call, it was a relative relief. First of all, he tested positive for Epstein Barr, but negative for Mono. The Epstein Barr means that he has had Mono at some point though, so I'm betting Will did just have Mono and he's gotten over it enough to test negative but the Epstein Barr still shows up. According to his bloodwork though, he was in kidney and liver failure. This sounded awful, but luckily we knew that the creatine Will takes can throw kidney function tests out of whack and show that there is a problem when there really is not. The liver thing was concerning, especially because his liver enzymes tested "very high", but we suspected that some of his other supplements might be partially to blame, and if he just got over Mono that would explain some of it too.
Either way though, it was nothing to mess around with, so Will went off his supplements and he went in for an ultrasound of his liver, kidneys, spleen and pancreas on Saturday. He got his blood drawn again yesterday to check his levels and make sure everything was trending downward after going off the supplements.
So then we got a call last night saying that Will's ultrasound revealed that he has a "fatty liver". That's all we've heard, but we're supposed to go in to talk to his doctor again once the new blood test results come in.
We're not sure if he just has a "fatty liver" or if it's considered fatty enough that he has Fatty Liver Disease. It looks like Fatty Liver is almost always caused by alcoholism (um, no) or being obese and not exercising (um, REALLY no).
So for now we're kind of dumbfounded. When we took out a life insurance policy about a year ago Will had his liver and kidney levels checked and everything was apparently fine. If he has a fatty liver, how on earth did it happen when he leads the healthiest lifestyle of anyone ever and what on earth do we do to treat it when the suggestions we've found so far are "lose weight" (he already did), "drink less than 2 alcoholic beverages per day" (he already does) and "exercise more" (I don't think that's possible)? Is it in bad taste to point out that "Fat Liver" (foie gras) is actually a French delicacy?
We're in the "something's weird and we don't know why" stage, and it's kind of scary. I hope talking to the doctor this week will answer some of our many questions. We're glad it doesn't seem to be anything completely horrible like cancer, but we'd rather it be nothing. On top of that, my parents and Will's mom (our only babysitters who don't have 9-5 jobs) are out of town this week so we might have to bring Emily to the doctor's appointment with us.
I'll update when we know more. In the meantime I console myself by thinking about the fact that my blood type can donate to Will's, so there's a good chance I could donate a kidney and part of a liver to him if it came down to it. It's nice to know I might be able to help in the future if it gets too bad, because I feel pretty helpless about how to help right now.
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