Chapter 1459: The Overlooked "Growing Pains

Chapter 1459: Chapter 1459: The Overlooked "Growing Pains

"How come you’re back? I was just about to take the kid for an ultrasound. Did you think of something?"

Seeing Liu Banxia return, Chen Hongyang hurriedly asked.

"I didn’t think of anything, it was Xu Yino. Maybe we could try contacting the kid’s teacher and classmates, or ask who usually picks the kid up and drops him off. Would that help us get a bit more information?" Liu Banxia said.

Chen Hongyang froze for a second. "Makes sense, I’ll go right now."

He finished speaking and didn’t bother with Liu Banxia anymore, just broke into a trot and ran toward the ward.

Whether they could get anything or not, at least there was still a bit of a chance.

"Who usually picks up and drops off the child?"

After reaching the ward, Chen Hongyang asked.

"In the morning I take him to school, and most of the time it’s his grandma who picks him up after school," the child’s father said.

"Where is his grandma now? There might be things you two didn’t notice that his grandma would have," Chen Hongyang asked quickly.

A new sense of hope surged in his chest. It was completely possible.

Liu Banxia, who had just caught up, heard this and also stared expectantly.

"The kid’s grandma has high blood pressure, and we were worried about her getting upset over his condition, so we didn’t let her come," the father said.

"I’ll call my mom right now," the child’s mother chimed in. She spoke, then took out her phone and dialed directly.

For no clear reason, a trace of expectation rose in Liu Banxia’s heart.

It was really because they understood far too little about the child’s situation right now. Even a tiny bit more might help with diagnosing and treating his illness.

Only after a full five minutes did the child’s mother hang up.

"My mom said Chengcheng did mention that his leg hurt a little, but not the kind of really bad pain. He’s growing right now, so could that be growing pains?" the child’s mother said.

Chen Hongyang frowned slightly. That was quite possible. Kids do get growing pains when they’re shooting up.

"Aside from that, anything else?" Liu Banxia asked.

The child’s mother shook her head. "Nothing else, everything else was perfectly normal."

Both Liu Banxia and Chen Hongyang were a bit disappointed. This leg pain was hard to treat as a real symptom.

Especially at his age, kids at school are very active—running, jumping—any of that could strain something and cause some pain.

"Alright, let’s leave it at that for now. We’ll do a detailed abdominal ultrasound for him," Chen Hongyang said.

"Director Chen, are the results from the previous tests still not out?" the child’s father asked.

"I’ve already marked them as urgent. It’ll be about another half hour, forty minutes at the latest," Chen Hongyang said.

The child’s parents nodded and stayed by his bedside again.

"What’s your take?" Chen Hongyang asked.

"Hard to say. Odds are pretty high it’s growing pains," Liu Banxia said with a wry smile.

"Then let’s do the ultrasound first and see," Chen Hongyang nodded.

His own judgment was the same; he just wanted to see if Liu Banxia might have some sudden inspiration.

The portable ultrasound was pushed over. After the couplant was applied, Chen Hongyang personally took the probe.

This time he scanned very slowly, trying not to miss a single detail.

He started with the liver and spleen. Those two organs often show prominent changes in some conditions. But because there wasn’t much fluid in the child’s abdominal cavity, the view wasn’t very clear.

The two of them studied it for quite a while, and based on the images, judged that the liver and spleen were normal in shape.

But they were both getting anxious, because they still had to scan the kidneys, and those images might not be very clear either.

"Director Liu, do you think there are signs of renal pelvis dilation?" After carefully scanning, Chen Hongyang asked.

"Scan it again, it wasn’t very clear just now," Liu Banxia said.

This is exactly why drinking water is so important before an ultrasound.

In emergency situations, they don’t have that condition. For regular patients, they’re always told to drink water before an ultrasound.

That’s the medium. Only when there’s enough water can you see clearly.

Chen Hongyang carefully scanned again, and Liu Banxia stared without blinking, then nodded. "It’s not very obvious, but there are indeed signs of some enlargement."

"Do you think the pelvic dilation might be affecting kidney function, and that impact in turn is interfering with liver function?"

"Sigh... we still need to compare it with the other test results," Chen Hongyang sighed.

Renal pelvis dilation counts as a marker, but the range for that marker is quite elastic.

Within 4 mm to 10 mm, it’s often not necessarily pathological dilation, but rather physiological dilation. The child’s current measurements fall right in that range, so it’s hard to judge.

All we can do is keep observing. Once the child’s condition stabilizes a bit, we’ll have him drink more water and see if we can get a clearer ultrasound.

They could see a tiny bit of hope, but right now that hope didn’t do much for them.

After waiting a while longer, all the latest test results finally came back.

No slender white blood cells were seen in the blood, and no abnormal nuclear morphology.

Lymphocyte differentiation antigen tests were also negative, thyroid function was within the normal range. At this point we have to consider the possibility of a rare disease.

"Do you guys have any other ideas?" Chen Hongyang asked.

"We can only keep ruling things out, right?" Peng Bo said.

"Director Liu hasn’t said a word. What are you thinking?" Wang Huan asked.

"That leg pain—was it really just growth pain, or is it a prodromal manifestation of the disease?" Liu Banxia shot back.

"It’s really hard to judge that. What exactly are you thinking?" Chen Hongyang asked.

"Actually, I was mulling over something on my way back just now. If the leg pain is a symptom, then is it muscular pain or bone pain?" Liu Banxia continued.

"If it’s growth pain, most of the time it’s muscle pain. But if it’s bone pain? Couldn’t we then consider it a reference symptom of the disease?"

"Eh? How did I not think of that?" Chen Hongyang slapped his forehead.

"Kids can’t describe things clearly to begin with, and parents don’t have medical knowledge, so it’s easy to mix them up. If it really is bone pain, then that’s a symptom we’ve just overlooked."

"Here’s what we’ll do. Let’s get an X?ray first and see if there’s anything abnormal. If there is, we’ll move on to a CT. Director Liu, can you mark it urgent?"

Liu Banxia nodded. "I’ll make the call right now."

They were just a little short of the criteria for an urgent study, but considering it’s a small child, and he’s already showing prodromal signs of liver and kidney failure, they could apply for urgency.

That perked everyone up a bit; anyway this so?called "growth pain" had already become their last straw to clutch at.

After all, their current diagnosis thinking was a blur; this was a bit off track, but it still counted as a diagnostic line of thought.

The child’s parents had absolutely no misgivings about all these tests. Right now they weren’t afraid of testing; they were afraid the tests wouldn’t find anything.

They knew Chen Hongyang and the others were taking their son very seriously, but just taking him seriously isn’t enough. They needed them to figure out what the illness was, so the child wouldn’t have to suffer.

Seeing this whole group walk into the imaging department attracted quite a bit of attention.

When people saw the little patient being pushed in, they could more or less understand. It was a kid, and X?rays are quick, so cutting in line was... whatever.

"Well now, Xu Yino really earned her stripes this time."

Staring at the images on the computer screen, Chen Hongyang frowned and said.

"This is a real headache." Liu Banxia nodded.

"We’re almost in a position to make the diagnosis. Even though it’s a rare disease, it’s pretty obvious on the film." Chen Hongyang said.

"The lesions are centrally located, in the diaphysis and metaphysis of the long bones, with large patches of sclerosis in the bone marrow within the medullary cavity. This is lipid granulomatosis, isn’t it?"

Liu Banxia gave a bitter grin and pulled at the corner of his mouth. "Let’s still run a couple more tests. This is the first time I’ve encountered a disease like this. If we really confirm it, that’s too depressing. Isn’t it that once the nervous system is involved, the prognosis is generally poor?"

"It’s my first time diagnosing and treating something like this too. It’s one of the diseases listed in the first batch of rare disease catalogues. Right now there doesn’t seem to be any particularly good therapy. I’ll have to go back and hit the books as well." Chen Hongyang said.

"Sigh... we thought about so many possibilities, and the thing that actually guided us forward turned out to be that ’growth pain’ we’d ignored." Peng Bo sighed emotionally.

"Which is why Xu Yino is the hero here. Director Liu, we need to add a dish for her at lunch." Wang Huan chimed in.

"We really should. None of us thought of it." Liu Banxia nodded.

It was just that right now he was completely weighed down by the child’s illness. Rummaging through his memory, he couldn’t come up with any good treatment options, and the prognosis wasn’t great either.

Even though the system hadn’t yet given him a task?completed prompt, he felt that just from the child’s X?ray findings alone, they were almost there.

Next up would simply be running confirmatory tests targeted at this disease.

"Dr. Chen, for the hard part that’s coming, we’re going to leave it all to you." Liu Banxia said.

"Yeah, we’re off, we’re off."

"Let me know the final test results."

Before Liu Banxia could duck out first, Wang Huan and Peng Bo each tossed out a line, then slipped away.

Next came talking with the child’s parents and deciding on a treatment plan. That is anything but easy. Especially with a disease like this, in such a young patient.

Liu Banxia felt just as emotional. He often nagged the six juniors that they should collect as much information as possible from patients and their families.

If Xu Yino hadn’t reminded them today, they’d probably have ordered a ton more tests on the child and gone around in a huge circle before finally clarifying the diagnosis.

Or maybe they wouldn’t have been able to diagnose it at all.

Because "leg pain" covers too broad a range, it’s very easy to overlook. Then where would everyone’s attention go? They’d keep circling around the child’s endocrine system.