Attacked by a Three-Headed Beast

When I first started writing Wheelchair Kamikaze back in 2009 I had very little idea of what these pages might eventually evolve into, but I did know that I didn’t want the blog to take the form of an illness diary, a simple journal of my MS symptoms and day-to-day experiences with the disease. Instead, I wanted to concentrate more on the emotional and perceptual impact of dealing with a progressive crippling disease, of being forced to slowly watch one’s body being consumed from within while trying not to lose one’s head in the process. I also thought the blog would be a good place to share my growing obsession with digging into MS research and my efforts at making some sense out of all that I found.

Having said that, of late my physical ailments have been giving me a pretty good trouncing and I’ve started to feel as though I should probably fill everyone in on the details of my puzzling illness, especially since my increasingly feeling like crap is definitely impacting my ability to keep up with regular blogging activities, particularly so when it comes to responding to the many heartfelt comments, messages, and emails sent by the readers I value so much. I’ve always striven to be extremely open and honest on these pages, and it seems almost disingenuous for me to not directly address my physical state when feeling like crud is taking up so much of my damned time.

I’ve often referred to my condition as “complicated” or “atypical” without going into too many details or explaining exactly what I mean. So, here’s what’s been going on with me physically, in all its glory. My body seems to be under attack by a three-headed beast, a triple whammy that these days has me wondering just who the hell I’ve pissed off.

First up there’s my neurologic illness, which just keeps whacking away at me, and of which I’ve written about most often on these pages. My preferred name of this slice of my physical mess is “creeping paralysis”, which is actually an archaic moniker for multiple sclerosis and other progressive neurologic diseases from back in the 19^th century. Although I present symptomatically very much like a patient with progressive MS, many of the doctors I’ve seen have been hesitant to definitively label me as having multiple sclerosis since almost all of my test results defy the accepted diagnostic criteria for the disease.

Foremost among the odd aspects of my illness is the fact that I’ve only ever had two central nervous system lesions, neither of which have ever shown any signs of active inflammation: a tiny one in my brain and a much larger, more invasive and troublesome monster located at the very top of my cervical spine, at the critical juncture between my spine and brainstem. I’ve been told that this lesion is so invasive that it’s almost like having my head cut off.

These two lesions haven’t changed one bit or been joined by any others in the 12 years since I first exhibited the telltale limp that eventually led to my initial diagnosis, yet my physical condition has gone straight downhill ever since. In fact, this duo of destruction even show up fully formed on a set of MRIs done to get a look at my pituitary gland back in the year 2000, a full three years before I started limping. At the time these images were first made these lesions were completely overlooked, until they were discovered with much surprise by the doctors at the National Institutes Of Health while they were going over every MRI image I’d ever had done as part of a comprehensive effort to determine just what it is that ails me, a goal neither they nor any other physician has ever able to satisfactorily complete. So, I’m left with a diagnosis of “atypical PPMS”, and I’ve come to grips with this by insisting that in my case those initials stand for the “Peculiar Paralysis of Marc Stecker”.

Whatever you want to call it, my neurologic illness has been anything but kind. It’s left my right side almost completely useless, the muscles in my hand, arm, and leg withered and twisted. Most of the time my right hand is curled into an emaciated claw, an appendage that would look more at home on a mummy than on a living human being. My right side is becoming increasingly impacted as well, getting weaker and less able almost by the day. At times it seems I can just about watch the muscles in my left arm and hand melt away, and with them any remaining semblance of normalcy in my life. Throw in most of the other goodies that come with neurologic illness, such as spasticity, numbness, tingling, immense heat intolerance, and bladder and bowel issues, and the toll has been staggering.

But that’s but one tine of a three-pronged assault on my physical well-being. I also have a wide range of endocrine problems, most likely due to a severely dysfunctional pituitary gland. The pituitary is the human body’s master gland, sending out chemical signals that regulate hormone production in all of the other glands that make up the endocrine system. Because my pituitary is on the fritz – likely because of some kind of autoimmune attack – I experience a wide variety of hormonal deficiencies, some of which if left unchecked can be just as debilitating as my neurologic issues. Among other hormonal abnormalities, I suffer from low testosterone, low cortisol, and low thyroid levels. Although I take various supplements and medicines in an attempt to make up for these deficits, my endocrine system is balanced on such a razor’s edge that if anything goes awry my overall symptoms often get magnified tenfold and I’m left in a vortex of physical despair.

Lately it seems that my thyroid levels have gone completely out of whack, leaving me tremendously weak and fatigued, and overall feeling severely unwell. I’ve lost about 25 pounds in the last three or four months, most likely due to endocrine issues and hopefully not because of something more ominous. Endocrine abnormalities can often result in muscle weakness and even muscle wasting, and could account for the fevers that attack me nightly, making it difficult to figure out which symptoms are caused by my neurologic stuff and which might be attributed to my hormonal problems or some as yet undiscovered culprit.

The complicated interplay of my progressing neurologic illness and increasingly abnormal endocrine system makes me an extremely difficult to treat patient, a puzzling jumble that regularly leaves my doctors at a loss, though I give them lots of credit for working hard at trying to figure me out. I often have completely unexpected and sometimes disastrous reactions to medications, and even minor surgical procedures like biopsies or oral surgery can leave me flat on my back for weeks because my hormonal deficiencies leave my body with very little capacity to heal itself. My endocrine issues are insidious, always at work just below the surface, hiding behind and sometimes exacerbating the symptoms caused by my neurologic illness. This forces my physicians to treat me with kid gloves, always aware of the fact that my strange brew of ailments can sometimes turn typically benign treatments into nasty surprises.

The last but definitely not least of my medical challenges is the constant and often excruciating pain inflicted on me by a condition called avascular necrosis, which has attacked my shoulders and hips. Avascular necrosis (AVN, sometimes also referred to as osteonecrosis) is a disorder that causes the bones in afflicted joints to quite literally die, leading them to eventually crumble and break. Although the precise cause of AVN is not understood, the condition is known to be a very rare side effect of steroid use, and it first manifested in me about six months after I had gone through a 10 day course of IV steroids meant to curtail my rampaging neurologic symptoms back in 2006. It’s now thought that I may have been more susceptible to developing AVN because of all of my endocrine issues – the extent of which we weren’t aware of at the time – and the fact that my body was chronically deficient of the natural steroids a healthy endocrine system produces.

These days, roughly 8 years after those ill-fated steroid treatments, I’m left with the equivalent of two broken hips and two broken shoulders, and all of the attendant excruciating pain that goes along with them. I’m pretty good with words, but I’m at a loss to convey just how agonizing this condition can be. On really bad days, which of late have been occurring with increasing frequency, whenever I try to stand or otherwise put weight on my hips the bones beneath my skin can be heard loudly and horrifically popping, cracking, and crunching as they collapse into each other, sounds often accompanied by my own involuntary yelps and howls. My wife Karen often bears witness to these horrific auditory fireworks, and the look of dismay that shows on her face is heartbreaking.

Chronic, intense pain subverts every aspect of life and commands absolute attention, shackling its victims to moments of utter despair. Through the years I’ve learned at times to affect an almost dispassionate demeanor about my neurologic and endocrine problems, temporarily divorcing myself from the situation and taking on the role of observer. The ghastly pain caused by the AVN allows no such contrivances. I now fully understand why they say torture often doesn’t work during interrogations; there are moments in every day when I would readily admit to killing John F. Kennedy if it would just make the pain stop for even just a few moments.

Avascular necrosis is the leading cause of hip replacement in the United States. Unfortunately, due to my neurologic and endocrine issues I’m not a candidate for surgery as I very well might not survive the procedure, and even if I did I wouldn’t be able to do the requisite rehabilitation afterwards. For many years a powerful anti-inflammatory drug called diclofenac helped keep my pain levels tolerable, but over the last several months it has been discovered that the drug was degrading my kidney function so I was ordered to stop taking it. I’ve tried other anti-inflammatory compounds in its place, but most seem be as effective as sugar pills. I’ve been on and off of a variety of powerful painkillers, from oxycodone to Dilaudid to methadone, but even these potent narcotics don’t help all that much and I despise the way they cloud my mind. I see a very sharp and creative pain management doctor, but there’s only so much she can do. The bottom line is I must try to get through my days with two broken hips and two broken shoulders, in addition to my omnipresent and progressive neurologic and endocrine problems.

So, there you have it, my triple whammy, a triumvirate of infirmities any one of which could be absolutely incapacitating in its own right. The fact that I suffer from all three simultaneously and that they form a three-headed beast that magnifies the power of each sometimes leaves me wondering if I might have somehow been hexed, the victim of some ancient curse. I do my best not to indulge in too much self-pity and try to remain as productive as possible, even if lately that hasn’t been very productive at all. At times, though, the reality of the situation crashes through all of my defenses and leaves me shaking my head, wondering just what the hell happened.

Still, each day the sun rises anew, and as long as I’m on this side of the grass I figure I might as well get on with it as best I can. I’ve always vowed that if these things take me down they’ll take me down swinging, but with so many targets to swing at it’s hard to know precisely where to aim. Especially when taking a swing with a weakened, emaciated, and agonized arm doesn’t amount to all that formidable an attack.

I can still spit with the best of them, though, and if that’s going to be the only weapon left to me, then spit I will. Ha!
 

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On a much more uplifting note, the healthcare website Healthline.com has named Wheelchair Kamikaze one of 2015’s best MS blogs. I thank them profusely, and urge readers to click on the badge below and check out some of the other blogs that made the list. Lots of  great stuff being put out by MS bloggers these days , each with their own unique take on life with multiple sclerosis…

Healthline