An Impossible Diagnosis (Millard example)
Posted: Wed May 17, 2023 6:38 pm
Nicole, July 18, 1972, 12:12 PM EDT, Portland, ME
Reye syndrome is a rapidly worsening brain disease of unknown cause, primarily affecting children, often with liver toxicity and fatal in a third to a half of the cases. Even the survivors usually have a lot of brain damage. Because 90% of cases onset following aspirin use, it's the main argument against giving children aspirin. Wilson's disease is a genetic disorder causing excessive copper build-up with brain and liver symptoms.
MY ANALYSIS: I understand the frustration of this being an undiagnosable case. That is, I don't know what diagnosis to give it. (II think it was Wilson's, but I have no way to confirm.) - However, the simple principles I propose move directly to the three things known about the case. We could have easily anticipated these three things.
Nicole had two background hard aspects: Jupiter square Pluto and Venus conjunct Saturn. She had Moon in Libra. Jupiter-Pluto as a health indicator is consistent with liver pathology (among other things). Venus-Saturn is signifies Venus afflictions, most often an endocrine problem, but including copper toxicity. Finally, the Libra Moon means that the most significant vulnerability to illness involved her head.
Headache, toxic copper levels, and liver disease were the three elements of her sickness.
Headache, vomiting, and fever began May 7, 1977. The next day "she became drowsy and her mother could not rouse her. She was admitted in coma to the hospital, and... died on May 12," 7:30 PM.Dr. Millard wrote:It is not often that a case is so baffling that a diagnosis cannot be made, in spite of all the resources of a modern hospital... [Nicole] died of fulminating liver and brain disease in the spring of 1977 [age 4], which was diagnosed as Reye's syndrome. However, there were some findings which did not fit this diagnosis. It was felt that she might have had Wilson's disease, a familial dominant disorder. It was important to find out, as there were two other children in the family, and there is a fifty percent chance of inheritance... there is a treatment for Wilson's disease if it is diagnosed early enough.
Nicole's liver was removed at autopsy and sent... for the copper content to be measured. It was higher than normal, as if it were indeed Wilson's disease, but not high enough to be diagnostic... Death was from brain and liver failure, and she died in four days.
...Nichole had always been healthy except that she had had headaches, beginning at the age of around two years and recurring irregularly, but at least once a month. They were associated with vomiting, and were typical of childhood migraine, although there was no family history of this...
Reye syndrome is a rapidly worsening brain disease of unknown cause, primarily affecting children, often with liver toxicity and fatal in a third to a half of the cases. Even the survivors usually have a lot of brain damage. Because 90% of cases onset following aspirin use, it's the main argument against giving children aspirin. Wilson's disease is a genetic disorder causing excessive copper build-up with brain and liver symptoms.
MY ANALYSIS: I understand the frustration of this being an undiagnosable case. That is, I don't know what diagnosis to give it. (II think it was Wilson's, but I have no way to confirm.) - However, the simple principles I propose move directly to the three things known about the case. We could have easily anticipated these three things.
Nicole had two background hard aspects: Jupiter square Pluto and Venus conjunct Saturn. She had Moon in Libra. Jupiter-Pluto as a health indicator is consistent with liver pathology (among other things). Venus-Saturn is signifies Venus afflictions, most often an endocrine problem, but including copper toxicity. Finally, the Libra Moon means that the most significant vulnerability to illness involved her head.
Headache, toxic copper levels, and liver disease were the three elements of her sickness.