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Chemical Eric: Dealing with the Disintegration of Central Control by Eric Ribbens Department of Biological Sciences Western Illinois University Part I—At Fifteen... He was, his mother always said, the cutest little boy ever, and she had always adored him. So strong, so sturdy, confidently charging through life. At , he joined a Little League baseball team, and made the AllStar team in his first year. It wasn’t until quite some time later that she realized something was very wrong. Looking back, probably the first symptom appeared when he was . Promoted up to the next division in Little League, he mostly sat on the bench. His coordination was not as good, and he seemed to have lost his hustle. Of course, it was probably just …show more content…

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? Questions . Should Dr. Kidd tell Eric that he is probably sterile? Why would he be sterile? . Is there anything that they could try to do to stimulate spermatogenesis? Why is the absence of facial hair important? “Chemical Eric” by Eric Ribbens Page  Part III—At Twenty-Eight... He was  now, and growing a beard. They had injected human chorionic gonadotropin (hcg) for two years in an attempt to produce sperm, but it hadn’t worked. He was big, '", and weighed  lbs. His hands and feet were especially large; he wore X gloves and size  shoes. Eric couldn’t wait to get the wires out of his mouth. His jaw had been hurting, especially the joint on the left side. The dentist thought he might have tmj (temporal mandibular joint dysfunction), and referred him to a dental surgeon. The surgeon had expanded his upper jaw by splitting it into five pieces, pulling the pieces into place, and screwing in small metal plates to hold everything together. The wires were to let everything heal, and  weeks of a mouth wired shut had been more difficult than he had thought. However, he was looking forward to getting rid of the frequent headaches. Questions . Why was he growing facial hair? Hint: hcg acts like fsh and lh, which are pituitary hormones that

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