Trying to Make Sense of It All

This is an archived post that was originally published at beyond-terminal.com

Last week I revealed Dr. Garcia’s alternative diagnosis, platinum poisoning, most likely from my braces. This alternative diagnosis was made 30 years ago, and I’m still left wrapping my head around it.

As I emphasized last week and will emphasize here again, the reason why I was susceptible to platinum poisoning – from my braces – is that I have a defective enzyme that prevents me from detoxifying heavy metals and other contaminants.

Further, it’s worth noting there most likely were other factors from my childhood that made me susceptible to the platinum poisoning. One of these factors is the multiple rounds, year after year, of antibiotics I had as a child due to ear infections. We’re talking an average of six rounds of antibiotics during the fall/winter from the time I was six-months-old to eight-years-old. (I would have been an excellent candidate for tubes, but this procedure was not yet common practice.) We know that much more about the microbiome than we did in the 1980s. Based on this research, it can be assumed that all of these broad-spectrum antibiotics led to inflammation of my gastrointestinal tract, which in turn led to numerous food allergies. It was during this time that my weakened immune system was also exposed to several chemicals and environmental toxins (see below), and my body was left unable to fend for itself.

Given my unique genetic constitution, the platinum in my braces pushed me over the brink. The metal was absorbed rapidly and quickly by my blood and nervous system, similar to an oil spill in the ocean. Yet none of us could see the devastation being wrought inside my body. These biological messes were only visible on the outside as I lost the ability to walk. Then talk. Then Write. Then Read.

__________  

The excerpt below is from Chapter 14.

“John, this is unbelievable!” my mom says as we walk to our car. “We’ve talked about Megan’s braces in passing before, but here’s proof! Here’s proof that platinum could be what pushed her body to the brink!” 

The temperature in Madison is in the teens, and I sit with my shoulders hunched, waiting for the heat to kick in after my dad starts up the Jeep. We make our way from campus onto the highway, and as we do so my eye catches the guardrail leading us from the entrance ramp onto the highway. My mind wanders as I question whether we’re being guided in the right direction.  

“I don’t know about ‘proof,’” my dad replies.

“But it makes sense, John! Don’t you think it makes sense?” From the passenger’s seat, my mom twists her body and looks directly at me. “Meg, what do you think?”

“It’s good.” I hope it’s good.

“I still don’t get it, though,” my dad says. “Think of all the people who have braces that don’t have the same problems Meg has had. Why would she be affected and not everyone else?” My dad, who’s used to being in command in his workplace, sounds irritated.

“I wonder if she has a sensitivity for some reason,” my mom says. “Remember how Dr. Garcia talked about how people’s genetic make-up can make them sensitive to different things? Maybe Meg has a gene that somehow prevents her from processing heavy metals like other people.”

My mom scans the sheet that lists all the remedies that Dr. Garcia gave us. “But what if there are also things from her childhood and from her environment that made her more susceptible to platinum poisoning?”

“What do you mean?” my dad asks.

“I’m not sure, but I keep going back to Meg’s ear infections. Remember her pediatrician saying that he’d never seen anyone more prone to ear infections? Just think of all those antibiotics she took. What was it? Five — maybe even up to six — rounds every fall and winter, year after year.”

My dad doesn’t say anything, but from the backseat I can picture what his face must look like — his crumpled brow, his tight lips.

“Well, let’s try to make sense of the other things on this list. We now know about the possible link between platinum and the braces, but what about the rest of this stuff?” My mom pauses. “Do you remember that article about the woman who was diagnosed with Multiple Chemical Sensitivities?” My mom references an article from the Star Tribune that she has in her three-inch yellow folder full of research. It’s about a woman named Cindy Froeschle Duehring who was diagnosed with MCS shortly after her organs started failing her. “Do you remember all the things that she’d become allergic to because of her weakened immune system?”

My dad nods.

“Things got so bad for her that she couldn’t even leave her house.”

“I remember.”

For the rest of the trip, my parents talk and talk and talk. They speculate as to how my immune system could have gotten so overloaded that I eventually succumbed to platinum poisoning. There’s a lot of guesswork involved, but, of course, my mom hits the books as soon as we get home. From her research, she discovers that aldicarb is a chemical that was used in the ChemLawn product that was sprayed on our lawn the last several years. She also confirms that polyurethane was the chemical used on our hardwood floors when we had them refinished.

The source of the mold is a no-brainer. Our basement flooded two different times before I was a fifth grader. The second time our house flooded so badly that my dad had to peel up the carpeting and rent industrial-sized dryers to try to dry everything out. I know he did his best, yet I still remember the dampness and the lingering smell months after the flood. As far as the arsenic is concerned, my mom knows that trace amounts can be found in food and water.

I find all of this information overwhelming. Yeah, the diagnosis of platinum poisoning and all of the chemical and food sensitivities stuff is potentially a better outcome than Hallervorden-Spatz. If the remedies work. But, and to me this is a big but. Did we catch this soon enough? Cindy, the woman who was featured in the Star Tribune article, died from a toxic overload. Her organs just failed her. Could this happen to me too? And even if I get through this, if I have this strange genetic make-up, will I always have to live a sheltered life?  

__________  

For so long it seemed essential to me that I be able to understand what happened to me when I was younger. Why I had gotten sick. How I had gotten better. And everything in-between.

In my 20s, I searched for answers. I bought books on electroacupuncture, food allergies, and chemical sensitivities. I perused these books, highlighter poised in my hand, thinking that, if I could understand the science and biology behind all of this, then I would reach a level of contentment. The endless searching for answers outside of me didn’t help though. It left me restless and feeling as though I needed to digest even more information.

I will never forget an incredibly poignant comment made by a mentor of mine. She said, “When you get to the point where you don’t need to find the answers in books, you’ll be at a place of healing.”

But, I thought at the time. But. There’s so much that I still don’t understand.

I’m not totally certain when the tide shifted for me. It was more gradual than a perfect bifurcation. However, I finally can say that I’ve reached peace with what happened to me. I’m no longer frantically searching for answers, thinking if only I can get my hands on the right research, it will all make sense and I can prevent it from happening again.

Ultimately, it’s more important that, whatever combination of things that my parents and I tried, it worked. And, at the end of the day, I ask myself this question: Is it more important that I understand why what we did worked, or that I’m here to tell the story?