For whiz kid, illness is just another problem to solve

Pair up, Julie Manthey told the students in her Old Dominion University writing class. Critique your partner's work and discuss it.

Manthey walked among the college students as they huddled. Spencer Lane, in his gray ODU sweatshirt, shades perched on his head, blended in. He's as tall as the rest and walks with the swagger of a college kid counting down to the semester's end. The only giveaway is his face - the rosy flush of a boy still going through puberty.

He's a 14-year-old freshman.

He's smart as heck.

But that isn't why he's here.

The near-constant vomiting started in September 2007, shortly after Spencer began eighth grade at Norfolk Academy. He shrugged it off as a stomach bug. After a week, it disappeared, but not for long.

By November, his mother, Michele, suspected that Spencer was suffering from more than just a virus that he couldn't shake. After examining the teen, a pediatrician said it was nothing.

Michele disagreed and remembers saying, "Prove me wrong." The doctor told her she was overreacting.

The Lanes took their son to a gastroenterologist, who conducted weeks of tests as Spencer's health worsened. By February, he could keep down only Goldfish crackers and Gator-ade. Already lanky, the teen was getting thinner.

Later that month, tests revealed the problem: Crohn's disease, a chronic disorder that causes inflammation of the digestive tract.

He was hospitalized for 10 days. Afterward, he had to take 30 pills a day to control the symptoms.

Spencer viewed the situation analytically.

That's a trait he's always had, one that early on let his parents know he was no average kid. As a little boy, he'd listen to them explain something, then reply, "OK, I understand, but can we do it this way?"

With the diagnosis of a condition with no known cure, Spencer was ready to get on to the solutions instead of dwelling on the problem. He asked about causes and genetic links, then quickly began to detect where the doctor's replies were headed.

The teenager stopped the doctor.

"No, I'm not trying to blame my parents," he remembers saying. "I want to know if this is something that I can pass on to my children."

Spencer's days of being on the cross-country team, playing tennis and eating spaghetti with red sauce were put on hold indefinitely.

He soon noticed a loss of skin pigmentation on his hands and arms. Then his knees and ankles began to ache and swell - possibly with arthritis, which affects about 25 percent of Crohn's patients.

But Spencer wasn't going to be defeated.

"Bad things can happen," he said recently. "You have to take what you get and work with it. You can't sit there and feel sorry for yourself. You have to get up and do something."

He did have his bad days. He was soon on a feeding tube because he was losing too much weight.

He traveled with a change of clothes in case his vomiting or diarrhea got out of control or he suddenly became sick and had to be hospitalized again.

Once, after he'd gone through another endoscopy and another colonoscopy, he looked at his mother in the car and asked, "Is it OK for me to feel sorry for myself?"

She told him he had 10 minutes.

Dealing with the disease has also been a journey for his parents and his younger sister, Morgan. The family has relied on faith and a focus on the positive.

Michele said: "My job is that, when he goes off to grad school and he's off puking by himself and there's no one there to rub his back, he'll be equipped to take care of himself."

His parents realized by the spring of 2008 that Spencer could not handle an eight-hour -a-day, five-day -a-week high school schedule. After the diagnosis, Spencer returned to school for only about two weeks before being hospitalized again and having to do his work at home.

Home schooling was considered, but Spencer didn't like the isolation. He felt like he would be giving in to the disease. Then they thought of college. The family knew he could do the work.

When he would briefly return to Norfolk Academy, he could catch up with five weeks of algebra in less than a day. His 1170 SAT score, which he earned when he was 12, was proof.

Going to college near home could allow Spencer to schedule classes, such as on Tuesdays and Thursdays only, and spread them around his medical appointments and rest periods.

The Lanes turned to the Virginia Beach Higher Education Center, where ODU conducts classes five minutes away from the family's house. University officials granted Spencer early admission based on his condition and his SAT performance, which was high enough to waive him in without a high school diploma.

Spencer was nervous on his first day of college. Teachers in some classes did double-takes when they saw him sitting among older students.

Within the first week, he said to himself, "Hey, I'm doing this."

In Manthey's freshman composition class, her first ice-breaker was to have the students pair up and interview one another. Spencer revealed his age and disease and allowed the class to ask questions.

"He's a delight," Manthey said. "He comes early, he always stays late. When he is in the hospital, he had his laptop and he would still e-mail, 'Can you clarify?' He has that kind of commitment to his education."

As time passed, Spencer started to notice new things about himself.

He still plays capture the flag with high school buddies in his neighborhood, but he's found a voice as a spokesman for his disease.

Four months after the diagnosis, Spencer put his feeding tube in his pocket and went to Capitol Hill to lobby for the Inflammatory Bowel Disease Research Enhancement Act, which would require more study of the condition.

Last June, he raised more than $6,000 for the Crohn's and Colitis Foundation of America.

Spencer is managing his illness.

He no longer needs the feeding tube since he's found a sparse diet that he can handle. His vomiting only happens about twice a day now.

"I see things in a different light," he said.

"I took food for granted. I would wake up and feel good - I took that for granted. I feel grateful when I do wake up and I feel great."

Spencer never planned to go to college at such a young age, but now he enjoys the academic challenges. He finished the first semester with a 3.8 GPA. After he graduates with a degree in mechanical engineering, he plans to go to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to study robotics.

He recently penned a scholarship essay, closing with this statement:

"I truly believe good will always come, just not in the way we originally planned. Yes, Crohn's has altered my journey, but not my will and desire to succeed and achieve. As soon as I was diagnosed, I decided I would not let Crohn's define who I am. I am not going to be the Crohn's kid; I am going to be the 17-year-old college graduate that just happens to have Crohn's."

Denise Watson Batts, (757) 446-2504, denise.batts@pilotonline.com