It was, Dr. Kidd thought, a most unusual case. The symptoms all indicated that a benign pituitary tumor had put pressure on the pituitary and disrupted its functions. It was an unusual condition, and this was the first case he had ever seen. The boy had been referred to a hospital in Madison, Wisconsin, where they used irradiation (triangulating from the left, the right, and the front) to kill the pituitary and any tumor associated with it. They also had to do a cartilage operation on his knee and put metal pins in both hips to hold the ball and socket jointing together.
The good news was that everything seemed to be working. The patient was 6'4" now and had put on muscle, so he now weighed over 220 lbs. X-rays of the skull showed that the bone saddle the pituitary rested in, which had been pitted, was now healing over, which indicated that the tumor was no longer putting pressure on the bone and therefore had probably been destroyed. His hormone levels had stabilized. Of course, he would need replacement hormones for the rest of his life, especially cortisone, thyroid, and testosterone, and they had used a growth hormone suppressant for a year, but overall Dr. Kidd was happy with his progress.
All of which led to Dr. Kidd’s present quandary. His patient, now 25, was sitting in his office and had just told Dr. Kidd that he was getting married. It had never occurred to Dr. Kidd to discuss it before, but normally patients with these syndromes were sterile, and Eric had little body hair and had told him he never shaved. What should Dr. Kidd do?
Originally published at http://www.sciencecases.org/chemical_eric/chemical_eric2.asp
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