Lane von Herzen: The Test That Any Able Physician Should Re-order

My Third Novel's Conclusion, My Heartbreak

My heart begins to break when I think about completing this particular book -- because this narrative has sustained me like no other story I've known. It's both more personal and more universal than my other works. But beyond memory and archetype, it's a cri-de-coeur about needing to become the person one is destined to be. And in the writing, I have met my own life's work, my own fated journey -- having the sense all the while that the pages are suffused with a resonance, an energy, an electrified field that defies explanation. Writers hope and pray to be overtaken by a work in this way -- to be conscripted into passionate service of a profound story. To experience it even once in a lifetime seems a great privilege. I still have several months before this novel is complete, and this constitutes my reprieve. Because I'm not ready for the beauty to end.

Monday, June 12, 2023

The Test That Any Able Physician Should Re-order

Five-and-a-half months ago, on December 27, 2022, my older son had an HGH of 5.41 ng/ml. That's over five hundred percent of the upper bound of normal for this measure of Human Growth Hormone.

Yet, on Saturday, when my husband showed physicians in El Camino Hospital's ER the physical copy of the report, included below, the test was not re-ordered.

Nor was any other pituitary testing ordered.

I believe that medical professionals, evaluating the circumstances surrounding this hospital admission, would consider the omission highly unusual.

I know I do.