The Marek Times

It’s Friday the 13th!  I just realized it.  Oh well, I’m just happy it’s Friday.  And the weather is finally nice!

So yesterday we had our appointment with Genetics.  It was totally weird.  They are obviously used to examining very young patients.  The doctor listened to my heart with a neonatal stethescope.  It was kind of funny.  Anyway, the point of the appointment was to examine me and Merv and see if either of us exhibit any signs of heterotaxy or situs inversus (the backwards, left to right thing).  The doctor seemed pretty confident about Merv, but isn’t quite so certain about me.  He said he couldn’t say for certain which side my heart was on or whether or not my lungs were normal.  I’m sure everything’s where it’s supposed to be, but we got sent for chest x-rays anyway.   So once they’ve had a chance to look at those, they’ll get back to us and probably want to examine Ben too.  I asked a lot of questions and it seems they are thinking the situs inversus may be linked to the X chromosome.  It sounds like very interesting research.

Wouldn’t it be weird to find out that my heart was on the wrong side?  Or that my lungs were backwards?  I’m pretty sure that’s a VERY remote possibility, but it’s interesting to think about it.   I wonder how many people are walking around all backwards inside and don’t even know it.