My 14 year old son along with his father Paul are doing a Triple Challenge around the anniversary of my son’s operation date. This involves a 10k bike ride, climbing Mount Snowden & kayaking 2k. Ryan has always been very physically fit but throughout 2017 Ryan’s health began to deteriorate. In August Ryan began suffering from horrendous stomach pains, we rushed him to an emergency appointment at the hospital. After lots of tests we were eventually told Ryan had very high calcium (hypercalcimia). We were referred to several different consultants and Ryan underwent many blood tests (over 35 in an 8 month period). Ryan then had Nuclear fluid injected into him to enable him to have a Dexa scan and over the months he had /bone scans/ neck & kidney scans/ultrasounds/Laryngoscopy. It was a very long process to get Ryan diagnosed with hyperparathyroid. It’s a rare disease but even rarer in children. If the disease occurs in children its mostly likely linked to genetic conditions such as MEN or FHH. These tests took several months to determine whether Ryans genetics were the cause of his condition - thankfully they weren‘t! We were told that Ryan would require surgery to remove an adenoma & given extremely high dosages of vitamin D to stop the onset of ‘hungry bones’ after his operation. Ryan’s operation went ahead in August 2018 and was a success, his calcium levels returned to the normal range. Ryan is still having regular check ups at the LGI.

We are all aware of how lucky he is, that it wasn’t caused by a genetic condition or that it wasn’t cancerous. High calcium causes lots of problems in the body, and can weaken bones, cause kidney stones and affect your brain, heart, low mood, tiredness, bone pain, excess tiredness.....the list goes on! Therefore Ryan has decided to give back and raise awareness to celebrate the date that will forever change his life, please give generously to support Hypopara & LGI Children’s Hospital. Thank you for your time and support 😊🦋