Duchenne. The first time I ever heard the word was when Kat, sitting next to me on the couch, covered her mouth and gasped. “Oh no,” I thought. “It’s Friday night and I just want to watch this movie and relax,” but I sensed a storm coming. In my customarily end-of-the-day compassionate manner, I didn’t respond. She will likely say something before too long…

She didn’t, so I said, “What’s wrong?”

“What if Brendan has Muscular Dystrophy? He has all the signs for Duchenne.” There was horror in her voice.

I had never heard of this, and frankly, it’s one of those things that perhaps the mind is shielded from as long as possible. Why would I go out of my way to research a life-changing fatal disease, anyway? I had already arranged to meet with B’s physical therapist to talk over some exercises we could do at home as we were not satisfied with his progress with his gross motor skill development. I had to wait till Monday, so I figured I’d put off the worry until I had more information. A useful adaptive strategy at the time. Especially, as Kat had to leave for a weekend yoga retreat. I remember Saturday evening, when it was just me, phoning my dad after a bit of research, and saying that if he really did have this, it would feel like a death sentence. I don’t know what I would do… I wept then. He too considered it wise to wait and see what the professionals say.

Monday came around and Kat had already emailed her concerns to the physical therapist. As she and I talked, she noted that there were a number of red flags pointing to this and recommended we meet with the pediatrician soon. I scheduled a meeting on Friday. Again, postpone panic until I have more information.

When we met with the pediatrician, especially after letting him know of our concern about Duchenne (DMD), there was urgency in his voice. “I’m going to do a blood test tonight for you guys. We should do this right away.” So we did the blood draw and the did a CK (creatine kinase) test. The doctor told me he would call me tonight to let me know what the results were. The next few hours were agonizing. Of course, I did a quick google search to find out what a normal level was. 22 to 198 U/L (units per liter). When there is muscle damage, CK enzymes get into the blood stream, so with a disease like DMD there can be 10 to 20 times this amount. At about 5:00, the doctor called and said that they are having to dilute the sample and he will call me soon. At about 7:00 or so, he called and said that Brendan’s CK level was 26,000. The only word I had was, “WHAT?!?” “Yah… it looks like he has this,” the doctor said. “I’m so sorry. I will be on the phone with Children’s first thing Monday and see what the next steps will be.” Thankfully, the boys were in bed already, because I really couldn’t breathe. I immediately called my parents who were en route to the airport and not home. I asked them to call us when they got home.

Those two hours were torture. My life as I anticipated it was collapsing before me. All I could think of was that I would see my son die, that all that things I wanted to do together we were not going to be able to do, that our life was forever changed. And indeed it was. I kept saying to Kat, “I just wish my parents would get home. This is too much. What are we going to do?” When they did, we said, “Are you sitting down?” I wept, I couldn’t speak. “The results were not good,” I said finally. “He has it.” They said, “We’ll come first thing in the morning.” This was the first week.