Do people always dig until the truth is revealed? Blood type/DNA/Chimerism

mfarraday · Apr 3, 2014

In my novel, a main character is a chimera. He has two different colored eyes (one blue, one green.) A blood test reveals that his daughter's blood type is incompatible with his own type. So therefore, she must not be his daughter. FURTHER tests, of the DNA variety, reveal that a sibling of his MUST be the father, not him.

I got the idea for this story from this case:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lydia_Fairchild

There was also Discovery special in which a person found out, through a DNA test, that his children identified as being the offspring of his sibling, even though he knew for a fact that he was the father.
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0035VWZPO/?tag=absowrit-20

This is the basis for part of my novel.

-----------------------------------

If you found out that your blood/DNA test indicated that your child was NOT your child, how far would you go in trying to get to the bottom of this? My character, so far in the plot, decides that the tests must be wrong. His wife was alone on a boat with him, on vacation, when the daughter was conceived, so he is convinced she was faithful.

Would you dig and dig, until you had all the answers? He doesn't particularly care to find out the truth.

I want to reveal much later in the novel that he is a chimera. Not at the beginning. Does this make sense?

If a DNA test revealed that a girl's uncle was her likely father, would a doctor immediately surmise (and tell a patient) '...well, you must be a chimera! Or else, someone was unfaithful.' Do ALL doctors know about this phenomenon? Would most doctors do all they could to provide answers? It is more convenient for me, as the writer, if they do not, but is that believable?

Questions, questions...please help me think through this. I don't know if the 'blood test' thing makes sense, really. I have scanned some medical journals where 'blood chimerism' was discussed but I am worried this all sounds a bit too far-fetched to really convince anyone.

Thanks...

juniper · Apr 3, 2014

I've read some in the past on chimeras while studying genetics in biology so I'm familiar with it. It's quite interesting. Also, there was a tv episode about it, on CSI or some other such program, several years ago, so some people may have a casual reference point.

mfarraday said:
If you found out that your blood/DNA test indicated that your child was NOT your child, how far would you go in trying to get to the bottom of this?

What I would do, and what your character would do, may be quite different. I would investigate further, but my background, interest level, and paranoia may be at a higher level than his. I tend to research things to death. I just like to know things.

mfarraday said:
My character, so far in the plot, decides that the tests must be wrong ... He doesn't particularly care to find out the truth.

Sounds as if you've answered your own question. He's decided the tests are wrong, and doesn't care to look into it any further.

mfarraday said:
Do ALL doctors know about this phenomenon? Would most doctors do all they could to provide answers? It is more convenient for me, as the writer, if they do not, but is that believable?

No, I would say not all doctors are aware of this. Some doctors don't read much beyond medical school, it seems. Some are very active in learning new things. Some are more curious than others and research outside their own scope of practice. I work with an assortment of doctors every day and there's a wide discrepancy in their knowledge and their aptitudes.

Whether a doctor would investigate this particular case further on his own is unlikely. Unless the mother steps up and wants the research done. Or a court order, or something similar. If the doctor's patient is the father, and not the child, then he is bound to serving his patient - the father - not anyone else in the family.

The doctor might be curious about the phenomenon in general, however, and learn info that he then passes on to the father casually.

wendymarlowe · Apr 3, 2014

My immediate thought would be "Wow, was this cribbed straight from the CSI episode?"

Sorry :-\

King Neptune · Apr 3, 2014

It is a good kind of story. There are many possibilities that you could use. You could flip it so the father was not the known father, because the father's testes had different Y chromosomes, or something else.

And yes, physicians are quite ignorant of most of medicine. They can follow the procedures, but most of them don't know much that's off the beaten track.

mfarraday · Apr 3, 2014

I'm definitely going to have to watch that CSI episode! Thanks for the replies. I have to figure out how to explain the blood tests and DNA tests now....

benbenberi · Apr 3, 2014

Would you dig and dig, until you had all the answers? He doesn't particularly care to find out the truth.

If he doesn't care to find out the truth, and he's not the type of person who would keep on digging and digging just because, then no, he's not going to. He'll look till he has an answer that satisfies him, and no further. And that answer doesn't have to have anything to do with the truth.

I want to reveal much later in the novel that he is a chimera. Not at the beginning. Does this make sense?

Yes. And if he halted the Quest for Truth at the first convenient stopping point, there may well be open questions, dangling threads, and a whole boatload of mixed-metaphor incongruities that lead straight to the big pot of Surprise! Truth! in spite of the character's original disinclination to go there.

buirechain · Apr 3, 2014

The one thing that would make me wonder about your story would be that the main character has two different eye colors. As a reader (if not a doctor) I would have to wonder why the father and the other characters in the story didn't take that as a hint. Yes, I know, that's hardly the only reason that people might have two eye colors, but it would certainly be something that would feel off.

Part of the issue here isn't just what a doctor would or would not know (I'd believe that some doctors wouldn't know about chimeras) but as a reader I'd wonder why the alleged expert didn't know. Part of the problem is that so many of your readers won't have a clue what chimeras are, so when it gets introduced in the third act it might seem almost like a deus ex machina.

Or, to put it another way, at one point Isaac Asimov was told that sci fi and mystery were incompatible genres, because the author could just invent technology that explained the mystery. Asimov proved that was wrong, however, but it was necessary to make sure that all the facts were known well in advance of when the mystery was revealed, especially any important technological differences, otherwise the reader would feel cheated.

This chimera thing could feel like a cheat to your readers if it isn't set up really really well. But, on the other hand, mentioning that in the beginning might give away the entire mystery.

shaldna · Apr 3, 2014

mfarraday said:
In my novel, a main character is a chimera. He has two different colored eyes (one blue, one green.) A blood test reveals that his daughter's blood type is incompatible with his own type. So therefore, she must not be his daughter. FURTHER tests, of the DNA variety, reveal that a sibling of his MUST be the father, not him.

I got the idea for this story from this case:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lydia_Fairchild

There was also Discovery special in which a person found out, through a DNA test, that his children identified as being the offspring of his sibling, even though he knew for a fact that he was the father.
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0035VWZPO/?tag=absowrit-20

This is the basis for part of my novel.

-----------------------------------

If you found out that your blood/DNA test indicated that your child was NOT your child, how far would you go in trying to get to the bottom of this? My character, so far in the plot, decides that the tests must be wrong. His wife was alone on a boat with him, on vacation, when the daughter was conceived, so he is convinced she was faithful.

Would you dig and dig, until you had all the answers? He doesn't particularly care to find out the truth.

I want to reveal much later in the novel that he is a chimera. Not at the beginning. Does this make sense?

If a DNA test revealed that a girl's uncle was her likely father, would a doctor immediately surmise (and tell a patient) '...well, you must be a chimera! Or else, someone was unfaithful.' Do ALL doctors know about this phenomenon? Would most doctors do all they could to provide answers? It is more convenient for me, as the writer, if they do not, but is that believable?

Questions, questions...please help me think through this. I don't know if the 'blood test' thing makes sense, really. I have scanned some medical journals where 'blood chimerism' was discussed but I am worried this all sounds a bit too far-fetched to really convince anyone.

Thanks...

Not sure if it's helpful, but years ago, and I'm talking back in the late 80's / early 90's, a relative was told, following a routine test, that he 'couldn't possibly' be the babies father. Cue lots of shouting etc. Anyway, turned out he was and it was all fine, but it caused a huge amount of stress and it took their marriage years to recover.

DeleyanLee · Apr 3, 2014

FWIW, my sister and her husband knew one of their sons would be a chimera because they had known about twins early on in the pregnancy and then there was only a single baby when he was born. My nephew nearly died at birth, and one of the tests they did--so my sister tells me--confirmed that he was a chimera before he was a few days old. This isn't a secret in the family.

It's believed that my late grandfather (who also had two different color eyes--my nephew doesn't) was also a chimera, so it might be something that "runs in the family", rather like the whole twins thing to start. Unscientific, but there it is.

You might consider having an elder relative know that Dad is a chimera, but always assumed that he knew, etc, so didn't think anything more about it. That might help keep the science quotent down a bit when you're ready to reveal iit.

Maryn · Apr 3, 2014

If I were your character, I'd consider myself the father for all intents and purposes. I raised this child. While the biological aspect might be troubling, I'm this girl's dad. I'm the one who paid for her braces, assured her not all boys were as mean as that one, and made sure she knew smart mattered more than pretty. That's my girl, there.

I might also wish to have a word with my wife about her and my brother...

Maryn, who doesn't watch CSI but heard this "story" before.

frimble3 · Apr 3, 2014

So much depends on how you present your MC. IRL some people search their ancestry back for dozens of generation, have their DNA tested, etc, even when there's no mystery.
I, on the other hand, don't know my great-grandfather's name. Edwin, or Edmund or possibly Edgar. Don't really know, couldn't be bothered to hunt it down. I can't imagine doing blood tests, let alone checking DNA.
Show you MC as a guy who's a little obsessive about stuff, who can't let it alone. He's the kind of guy who gets a dog from a breeder, because not knowing what his mutt is a combination of makes him crazy. He wants to know the complete service history of his car, and where his doctor went to medical school (and, if possible, his grades.)
It's not just "Is this meat organic?", he wants to know what farm it came from.
So, he doesn't expect his G.P. to be into this kind of thing, although perfectly serviceable for the annual physical and the usual check-ups and ailments. He looks for a genetic specialist, finds a good one, who does know about chimeras.

Or, how old is his daughter? Maybe she hears him talking about the test results, and she pushes to find out? If she isn't a little kid, the implications could be kind of shattering. Like suddenly discovering you're adopted.

shaldna · Apr 4, 2014

One of my mum's friends has a brother who was a Resus baby and he had a full body bloody transfusion when he was a baby - about 40 years ago. Not sure how they treat it now, but that was the typical treatment then.

Obviously that makes blood tests confusing.

jeseymour · Apr 4, 2014

Okay, I'm sorry I don't have anything to add, except that when I read the first sentence, where you said your character was a chimera, I started to wonder why they would do blood tests. I mean, wouldn't his appearance make it obvious? That and the fact he could breathe fire?

mfarraday · Apr 4, 2014

I was thinking of either having the daughter be in a car accident and need a blood transfusion (kinda cliché) or have the family researching the family tree and do a DNA test (less cliché.) You're funny, LOL.

frimble3 · Apr 4, 2014

mfarraday said:
I was thinking of either having the daughter be in a car accident and need a blood transfusion (kinda cliché) or have the family researching the family tree and do a DNA test (less cliché.) You're funny, LOL.

But they wouldn't need a DNA test for a blood transfusion, would they? And, doing a DNA test for researching a family tree says something about your characters, a tendency to go over and above, perhaps? Most people just bug the family elders for names, or sign up for Ancestry.com.

jaksen · Apr 5, 2014

Another example of a chimera, is when a Down Syndrome individual does not have the extra chromosome 21 in all the body cells. Some parts of the body, or various organs (depending on what cell line they came from) will have the extra chromosome, some won't.

And I learned this over 20 years ago when my Down Syndrome child was born. All the doctors we worked with knew about it. Our pediatrician, when we told him this was a possibility, was fully informed, too. My internist also knew - treated me for gestational diabetes at the time. We were all hoping...

So there you go, in the early 1990's, and doctors were aware of this 'phenomenon.' I didn't encounter any who weren't familiar with it.

(But nope, my son was not a chimera. In his case, if he had been, it would have been a very good thing.)

Do people always dig until the truth is revealed? Blood type/DNA/Chimerism

mfarraday

Time Traveler

juniper

Always curious.

wendymarlowe

writer, mother, geek

King Neptune

mfarraday

Time Traveler

benbenberi

practical experience, FTW

buirechain

Caution: (tries to) Walk on Water

shaldna

The cake is a lie. But still cake.

DeleyanLee

Writing Anarchist

Maryn

Baaa!

frimble3

Heckuva good sport

shaldna

The cake is a lie. But still cake.

jeseymour

mfarraday

Time Traveler

frimble3

Heckuva good sport

jaksen

Caped Codder