Riggs

Chemical Eric: Dealing with the Disintegration of Central Control

By Eric Ribbens

Department of Biological Sciences

Western Illinois University

Part I—At Fifteen...

He was, his mother always said, the cutest little boy ever, and she had always adored him. So strong, so sturdy, confidently charging through life. At 10, he joined a Little League baseball team, and made the All- Star team in his first year. It wasn’t until quite some time later that she realized something was very wrong.

Looking back, probably the first symptom appeared when he was 11. Promoted up to the next division in Little League, he mostly sat on the bench. His coordination was not as good, and he seemed to have lost his hustle. Of course, it was probably just that he was being expected to do too much, and it was easy to overlook. And he began to grow.

Soon he began to notice girls, but after an initial girlfriend or two, he retreated. Too shy, probably. They moved, and moved again, and his grades slipped. He became more introverted. Troubled teen? Doing drugs? She found no evidence, but worried. And he grew.

He turned 15, and he grew. He was getting close to six feet tall now, and was wearing size 13 shoes. He was skinny, weighing only 150 lbs. His right knee began to swell, and he developed mysterious ulcerated sores on his lower left leg that refused to heal. He began to complain often of feeling sick, and came home from school frequently. Never anything seriously wrong, but he just didn’t feel good.

They revisited the doctor, who picked up on the description of large hands and feet and decided to check blood levels of some hormones. His thyroid was down, his cortisone levels low, his testosterone levels low, and his growth hormone levels high. Taps of his right knee removed up to 500 cc of fluid, but no evidence of anything specifically wrong inside his knee, just that it was being damaged. He looked gaunt and unhealthy. Then he fell and broke his left hip....