DAC HYP

The Greater Good

During a 2012 visit to the National Institutes of Health (NIH), I met a very pleasant young intern who had recently abandoned a career in law to take up a career in medicine, all because he’d wanted to use his talents to make the world a better place. Apparently most of the lawyers he’d met in his former life had been miserable, self-centered creatures.

He hadn’t wanted to end up like them.

So far, the intern had found the people of the NIH to be far better company than the rapacious lawyers he’d fled from. The intern observed that everyone at the NIH was there for the public good, even the patients, people who were willing to undergo trials that may or may not directly benefit them, but which would most certainly benefit others. As the intern put it, the institution was filled with do-gooders, “from the bottom up.”

I did not resent the intern for classifying patients like me as being at “the bottom” of the NIH heap. I deserved that. I myself have made a similar observation about the outstanding qualities of the good people I meet at the NIH, although in my self-serving version, “the bottom” is occupied by the NIH cab drivers —a demographic consisting primarily of highly educated immigrants, like the driver who’d earned a medical degree in his former life back in a war-torn African nation.

I don’t take anyone’s status too seriously, including my own. Status is subject to abrupt change. Things can be going fine, and then along comes a war. Or a disease. There are many paths to the NIH, indeed.

I wanted the good intern to like me. I did not correct his assumption that my primary motivation for participating in the trial for DAC HYP was a selfless one. My actual motivation was anything but selfless. DAC HYP was the only drug I’ve taken that managed to stop the progression of multiple sclerosis (MS). When I’d heard it was being taken off the North American market, I’d panicked. I’d made a few phone calls, and tracked down the doctor whom I’d initially begged to prescribe it off label.  Joining her study at the NIH was the only way I could continue to take a drug with a known benefit.

There hadn’t been any risk involved in joining the study that I hadn’t faced already. There wasn’t even a risk of my being placed in a control group and receiving a placebo. I wasn’t at the NIH to make the world a better place. I was at the NIH to continue to take a better drug.

From what I’ve overheard from other patients at “the bottom” of the NIH barrel, we are all there primarily for our own private good. Did we want our disease cured? Hell, yes. Getting to the NIH meant cutting to the head of the line. No one gets an NIH ID without having struggled for it, including those who arrive in a wheelchair.

Human beings are complex. As for those selfish lawyers the intern was fleeing? Maybe some of those miserable human beings do in fact inadvertently contribute to the greater good while in pursuit of those big fat paychecks. More power to them.

I’d like to imagine that should one of those fat cats one day get sick, and have to claw themselves to “the bottom” of the heap at the NIH, they would make their own contribution to the greater good through their rapacious pursuit of an elusive cure. The intern may think better of his former colleague should he meet that person as his patient. He may think that they have undergone some spirtual transformation. But they will be the same ambitious bastard they always were.

We all contribute to society in some way. Like the intern, I’d rather hang out with people whose positive contributions to the world are deliberate, and not inadvertent. Yet by now I’ve learned that no one’s motivations are as clear as we would like to think.

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Finally…FDA Approves Zinbryta

IMG_4206I just read that the experimental drug I’ve been taking for ten years has finally been approved by the FDA and will be available as Zinbryta. This must mean Ms. Lab Rat is officially retired. After many years of commuting to the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to take the only drug that’s stopped the progress of my multiple sclerosis (MS), I am now going to have to buy the drug like everybody else.

You know what? I’m thrilled. I’ve hated having to hear heartbreaking story after heartbreaking story of yet another person getting an MS diagnosis, getting an ineffectual, often expensive treatment, getting worse. They look at me, and I appear fine. I’m not, but I’m also not getting worse. My medication has worked. But for these past ten years, so many others with this disease have had no chance of seeing if this medication would work for them. My dear friend Debra died way too young still waiting for this day. As you can imagine, I’ve been on the phone a lot this afternoon, updating every person who has asked me about Zinbryta. This blog post is for those of you whose numbers aren’t in my contact list.

Until I let the world know the risk I took with this drug was worth it, I won’t feel that my tenure as a Lab Rat is well and truly over. But I guess an era has come to an end.

No more free flights to Washington DC for free MRI’s. No more free top level medical care. No more cognitive tests. (Hooray!) No more free monthly blood tests to check my liver function. (My liver is just fine, thank you.) No more nights on-site at the swank Safra Lodge. No more free stays at Bethesda Court Hotel. No more side trips to the awesome DC museums and zoo. No more viewings of indie films at Bethesda Row Cinema. No more delicious dinners at Bethesda’s many fine restaurants.

Do you get the idea that being in a clinical trial at the NIH has been a pretty sweet deal? It has been for me. But what I’ll miss the most will be the people: the brilliant doctors, nurses, and interns of the NIH. Why, even the taxi drivers usually had pretty fascinating back-stories to share, if given half a chance.

The one thing I regret about my participation in the trial is that I waited until the end to reach out to other guests at the NIH; like the older lady I met in the shuttle van who’d lost both breasts and lymph nodes to ineffectual and painful cancer treatments. The cancer had spread and spread for years until she was accepted for an NIH trial (“I couldn’t believe it, at my age.”) Now her NIH doctor extracts some of her immune cells, expands the cell population in the lab, and treats the cancer with it. Her cancer? Gone. The side effects? None. She’s one happy lady. The NIH complex is full of motivated people pursuing second chances, and I wish I hadn’t been too timid and/or respectful of their privacy to chat with them. (If anyone reading this is an NIH lab rat, consider this your invitation to introduce yourself.)

I’d meant for this blog post to be about Zinbryta, but I guess it’s just a big thank you note to the NIH.

Zinbryta has been safe and effective for me for years now, and I’m terribly eager to let people know that there is one more—I think far better—alternative out there to try. But if Zinbryta doesn’t work for you, do not despair. There are plenty of other MS drugs in the research pipeline. Maybe one day you’ll wind up as a Lab Rat, too. Clinical trials are not all MRI’s and blood work. They are also an investment for the future of others coping with disease. Who knows…maybe one of us will one day be a Lab Rat for the drug that winds up becoming the cure. I won’t stop hoping.

 

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Six Months

Note from the Rat: Reading over this 2012 blog post from my vantage point in 2016, I am so grateful to the NIH (National Institutes of Health), which has continued to supply me with the MS medication I have depended on to keep my Multiple Sclerosis in remission. This medication, which I refer to as  DAC HYP, will (hopefully) go to market with the name Zinbryta. In these intervening years since I wrote this post, all that was asked of me was that I have my liver functions checked locally every six months, and that I fly down to the NIH every six months to have more extensive testing; more bloodwork, a lumbar puncture, eye exams, typical neurologic exams, MRI’s. The length of time it is taking to get the drug approved has been very frustrating to me, as I know more and more people who have been diagnosed with MS who have no access to the medication that has worked so well for me (one brain lesion in ten years, vs many tens of lesions in the ten years previous.) My very dearest friend with MS, Debra C.,  died while waiting for access to this drug. The only comfort I can take from this long wait is that I, and the privileged few on the safety arm of this study, have accumulated more living proof that one can take this drug for years and years and years with no major side effects.  So here it is, my blog post from 2012:

 

I’ve got 6 months left on the NIH (National Institutes of Health) trial of DAC HYP. After that, I might not get further access to the drug that has kept the progress of my multiple sclerosis (MS) in check for the past 6 years.
I didn’t panic when I was told the money just wasn’t there to keep the trial participants on the drug. I probably should have. As my sister reminded me, “You think you’re doing OK, but that’s not you doing OK, that’s you on the drug.”
She’s right.
I know, because I get monthly reminders of me-off-the-drug. I can only inject DAC HYP once a month, but the effect usually seems to last only three weeks: the week preceding a fresh injection is a drag. Literally. I pretty much just drag my body around, propping it up until my next dose of DAC HYP, when the “real me” can take over again.
What will I do when there is no next injection?
I may be left dragging around a husk of myself until such time as the FDA approves the commercial release of DAC HYP. That process may take as long as two years.
How much damage can multiple sclerosis do in two years?
I can’t afford to find out. My central nervous system has undergone punishing damage already, from the many years I was on no drugs, followed by the many years I was on bad drugs.
Everyone I tell about the upcoming DAC HYP discontinuation has urged me to take another drug in its place. If I had thought there was a more effective drug out there, I wouldn’t be taking a trial drug, would I?
I’ve had plenty of disappointments with other MS drugs.
Some new ones have come out since I started my trial, and maybe those drugs will prove effective. Or maybe they’ll prove lethal. People have died on MS drugs. At times, my MS symptoms have been bad enough to make me indifferent to such a risk. The “real me”, the one on DAC HYP, doesn’t feel that desperate. We’ll see what happens when access to the “real me” runs out.
Somehow I’ve never envisioned a life after DAC HYP that would include sampling yet another MS medication. I’ve been hoping, I still hope, that I would live to switch out DAC HYP for the actual cure.
You see, I don’t want to medicate my MS. I want to vanquish it.
I’m not the only one. There is talk of an MS “cure.” It’s somewhat hyperbolic, but it’s also compelling. Dr. Wahls, a neurologist in Iowa City, used to suffer from a particularly aggressive form of MS that was rapidly debilitating and drove her into a reclining wheelchair. She fought back by eating every “brain food” she could think of, and by exercising as much as was physically possible. I wouldn’t say she is “cured” now, because I bet her lesions didn’t disappear, but she is certainly doing very well. She can stand for the duration of a TED talk. She is also biking to work, she is practicing medicine full-time, and she is starting a clinical trial to examine the effect of diet on MS. It could be, as she claims, that she has reversed a case of progressive multiple sclerosis. I hope so. Or it could be that she’s on the remitting cycle in a mislabeled case of relapsing remitting MS. I’ve ridden on the high of those cycles, myself, exercising like a fiend on my borrowed time. I’m sorry to say those times don’t last. I wish her the best. Especially since, in six months, the Wahls diet may turn out to be the best option I’ll have left.
But why wait six months?
I’ve been eating aggressively healthy brain food ever since I first heard of the Wahls diet, but now I will start eating healthier still. (This prospect terrifies my husband, who claims I already eat healthier than anyone he knows)
I am perfectly willing to trade DAC HYP for eight daily platefuls of kale, if that would help me. I am perfectly willing to lift weights, swim laps, and practice yoga with twice the intensity of my normal schedule. Indeed, how could it hurt? I can foresee only one downside to this course of action. I know I am perfectly capable of blaming myself for not trying hard enough if—or let’s face it, when—the disease strikes again.
Would blaming myself be so healthy? I don’t think so.
A number of good people have approached me to ask what I “do” to remain so healthy with MS. I say I exercise, I say I eat well, I say I do yoga. They tell me I have a “good attitude.” They tell me others, those sicker with MS, do not. That may just be oversimplifying things.
Here’s the deal: I’ve had access to a good drug. Others with MS have not. In six months, I will join their ranks. We’ll see if a mix of a “good attitude”, a good workout routine and good diet will be enough to see me through until DAC HYP goes on the market. I’m sure it’s all very necessary. I can only hope it will be sufficient.

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Saving Face

“God has given you one face, and you make yourselves another.”
William Shakespeare
Act 3, Scene 1 of Hamlet

I knew I was in trouble before I opened up my eyes this morning. I could feel that my eyelids were swollen before I attempted to wrench them apart. A trip to the mirror confirmed what my senses implied. My upper eyelids were elephantine. Worse, there were tender red patches beneath each eye. Worse still, tonight I’m scheduled to sit in front of a hundred or so paying audience members with a spotlight shining on this problematic face. Worst of all…it’s kind of my fault.
I write, “kind of,” because last night, when I applied my makeup, I hadn’t realized the potential for this consequence. I write, “my fault” because my neurologist had given me the opportunity to take an all-expense paid trip to the National Institutes of Health, (NIH) in Bethesda, Maryland, and get my rash seen by a dermatologist there. At the last minute, I’d chickened out, and had the NIH cancel my flight, because on that particular morning, my skin didn’t look so bad, nothing a little concealer couldn’t fix. I couldn’t stand the thought of flying all the way to Bethesda over a couple of little scaly patches that could be covered up with concealer. Believe it or not, I thought I was saving face. I couldn’t stand the possibility of being regarded as a hypochondriac.
Yeah, right. That hypochondriac option has been out for decades. Who did I think I was fooling?
I’m going to have to back up a bit. I’m going to have to be straight with you about a thing or two.
Starting with this: I set up this blog to share my experiences on an experimental medication for multiple sclerosis, DAC HYP. It’s only now that I notice that I’ve underplayed…as in, possibly haven’t mentioned…that I’ve experienced a side effect. That side effect is rash.
You might well ask, why not?
Here’s why not. I’ve got multiple sclerosis (MS) a horrible, and so far, incurable, degenerative neurological disease, and DAC HYP is the only medication I’ve taken—and I’ve taken plenty—that has actually served to stop the disease progression.
That’s pretty significant.
Rash? As side effects go, rash just hasn’t seemed that significant.
To put it into context, a potential side effect for a competing drug, Tysabri, is sudden death. So, yeah—rash. What of it?
I’d rather have a rash I can see than a brain lesion I can’t see. The choice to take the medication, and bear with the side effect, has been a no-brainer, at least for me. For a while there, I thought that anyone who saw things differently must just be more brain damaged than I am.
Two things have happened since I’ve started this blog that have changed the way I view the risk/benefit analysis of taking a drug that stops MS, yet causes rash.
Thing One: after years and years and years on this drug, I finally did get one—and only one—new brain lesion. And still, as far as I can tell, that’s a phenomenally good result if you compare the efficacy of this drug to that of any other MS drug out there. I’ve been told this one lesion had the good grace to show up in a “silent area.” I don’t agree that the damage was silent—I felt pretty horrible for a while there—but in truth, I’m feeling all right now.
Except for—
Thing Two: the rash has gotten worse.
Way worse.
When the rash first showed up—I believe that happened around the time the medication changed its formulation—it appeared on the inside of my hand; a nice, innocuous spot. No one was too likely to see it. And that was important to me. Some people call MS an invisible disease. I like it’s invisibility, thank you very much. MS only stays invisible if it isn’t allowed to progress.
The rash itched. I applied hydrocortisone. It went away. And then the rash reappeared, on my face of all places. A place everyone was likely to see. And that made the rash something I had to…um…face.
I managed to not face it.
I had a solution. I used a cosmetic. A simple concealer. Perhaps if I were a man, and not in the habit of putting on makeup, that move would have felt like a big deal. But I am a woman. Most of us women are all too familiar with, shall we say, putting our best face forward. (See: Hamlet.)
So yes. I wore concealer over my rash every day. Even on those days the NIH flew me out to examine me, to, you know, see if I was experiencing any side effects on DAC HYP.
Maybe we’ve been at cross-purposes. Whenever I visit the NIH, I always strive to be mistaken for a doctor instead of taken for a patient. My most treasured moments in Bethesda are the times I (almost) get away with this, like when a driver for the NIH picked me up from the hotel and asked, “Are you a patient, or…”
I treasured that “or.” I gave that driver a big tip.
The NIH culture supports these seemingly innocuous mistakes of identity. A nurse once berated herself after she’d asked me a question about my condition in an elevator. “I shouldn’t have done that. I’m not supposed to address you as a patient in front of other people.”
I’m not to be treated like a patient. I’m to be treated like a peer. One never gets too personal with one’s peers. I’ve had one neurologist actually apologize several times during an examination, for having to touch me, for asking me to disrobe. I understood she was expressing her respect for me. But that sentiment can go too far, and actually disrupt the messy process of getting down to the ugly truth.
And it’s hard to get there. For instance, you’ve been reading paragraph after paragraph about my rash, and I still haven’t mentioned I also have scaly dry patches on the inner folds of my arms and my legs. These patches itch. But I tend to forget to mention them, not only to you, but to my neurologist. Why? Because these itchy patches are not visible to others, at least not in the winter months. I can bear almost any amount of discomfort. I just can’t bear exposure.
Which brings me to the prospect of going onstage with a rash in front of about 100 people.
I’d had other plans for this evening’s appearance. I’d planned to get a professional make-up job. I’d planned to get an elaborate up-do. I’d planned to look fabulous, like I did on opening night, just a few hours after I made that cancellation.
Life doesn’t always go as planned
When I’d cancelled my flight to the NIH and my appointment with the NIH dermatologist, my neurologist had suggested I quit wearing make-up. After opening night, I complied. As of last night, my face was repaired, just in time, I thought, for me to take the stage again. Thinking the problem was over, I’d applied a little makeup before going to a concert. We know how that turned out.
This morning, I cancelled my make-up session. I didn’t want to make my elephant face any worse. I did not cancel my up-do.
And then I went to yoga. I’m so glad that I did.
Our teacher, Sharon, shared a passage from a book in which yoga instructor Sianna Sherman answers the question, What’s the best advice you’ve ever gotten?
Sianna answers, “Inner body bright,” a phrase she’d picked up from her teacher, John Friend. Sianna explains that this phrase is “his way of saying ‘It doesn’t matter what’s happening on the outside. No matter how fierce and intense and up against ourselves we feel, if we tap into that place—the place that yoga guides and invites each one of us to—we’ll find that our essence is bright and that our inner freedom is fully present.’ Often, it’s our outer freedom that’s compromised by own mind. We say: ‘Oh I’m not free’ or “I’m a victim, I’m not empowered. Or, ‘This happened to me…’ And then we start to close down. And that’s easy to do, but if we go inside and wait a minute, there’s this inner freedom that’s never compromised; there’s this inner light that’s always true. So you say to yourself, ‘Inner body bright, let me melt the outer body, melt all the crazy stuff that’s happening into the fire of my heart, into that inner light, and then I’m going to stand tall in this light and keep going, no matter what.”
As it happened, that message was exactly what I needed to hear to muster the courage to get onstage with a rash, and without the makeup. When I sit in the spotlight, I somehow doubt I’ll be whispering to myself, “inner body bright.” But I did get the message there’s more to me than meets the eye.
I have lived a long time. I have sported many appearances. I have been a cute little girl, a wince worthy adolescent. I’ve been a woman in a wheelchair. Last week, just before my opening night performance, when I was the lady with the fabulous updo, the owner of an upscale restaurant rushed up to my beautiful family, and asked, “Where do you come from?” in awestruck tones, as though he expected us to answer, “We have descended from Mount Olympus.” That night, it didn’t feel like a challenge to take the stage.
Tonight I’ll have to give the audience some credit. I’ve cancelled my up-do. I won’t apply concealer. I’ll see if I can summon up enough inner beauty to outshine the rash. (The swollen eyelids had calmed back down.) I am, after all, performing for trueTheatre. The audience expects me to be vulnerable. What better occassion to take that risk?

Ask About Your Medication

Note from the Rat: The medication I refer to as “daclizumab” back in 2011 is expected to be marketed to the public as “Zinbryta.”

It is good to ask questions. Even when the answers aren’t always pleasant—especially when the answers aren’t pleasant.
No one likes to ask questions when things are going well. My first months on daclizumab went really well, so I didn’t bother to ask my nurse about the origin of the clear liquid dripping down the IV tube into my veins. Whatever it was, it was working. My multiple sclerosis symptoms were fading into the background. I couldn’t ask for more than that.
So I didn’t.
Month after month, I had the same nurse arrive at my home for infusions. We took to chatting. The heparin scandal came along, taking the lives of 81 Americans who had assumed—as I’d assumed—that nothing fatal could be lurking in a labeled medication. That month, the nurse told me it wasn’t necessary to flush my veins with heparin. I gave her the go-ahead to use it anyway. I didn’t want to mess with success. Eventually, though, I think we may have agreed to skip the heparin flush. Daclizumab kept on working, either way.
The January 2010 home infusion seemed no different than the others. Neither of us knew it would be our last. As usual, my blood pressure was low, as was my temperature—96.8. As usual, I had no troubling new symptoms to report. The drip itself never took all that long—maybe 15 minutes— and as usual, the nurse and I chatted those minutes away. The nurse mentioned she’d seen me lifting weights at the rec center while she’d been walking the track. I told her it would be OK to interrupt me the next time she saw me there. Neither of us could have guessed there wouldn’t be a next time.
I didn’t start to feel funny until the nurse was gathering her bags to leave. Even then, I didn’t feel funny enough to stop her. My temperature shot up during the interval between the thud of the front door and the clap of the screen door —the screen door hinge is on backward, which makes for a thirty second delay.
I headed straight for the couch, and caught a glimpse out the window of the nurse’s car pulling away. I lay down. Something wasn’t right. At that time in my life, it was unusual for me to lie down while the sun was still shining. I dragged myself off the couch and up the stairs to take my temperature. 98.8.
I wasn’t sure if I should call the nurse. Everybody knows 98.8 is not a fever. But 98.8 was two degrees higher than my temperature of just half an hour before. I was comfortable with that nurse. Even so, I didn’t want her to think I was a big baby. Or a hypochondriac. Or a fool. But then I got to wondering about the contents of that IV bag. Who was to say it wasn’t tainted, like the heparin a while back?
I swallowed my pride. I called the nurse and left a message.
It was a good thing I did.
The high temp resolved itself without any apparent consequence. I felt sheepish when the nurse returned my call that afternoon. But then I heard her news. I quit being sheepish, and shifted into high alert.
Apparently, after listening to my message, she’d called the pharmacist to ask about my drug.
“Guess what he told me? He said I just gave you the last of that medication. It’s been taken off the U.S. market.”
I asked if there’d been another safety scandal. She assured me there had not. “Someone’s bought the entire inventory.”
I wondered aloud, “When was anyone going to tell me?”
The nurse didn’t have an answer for that.
If I hadn’t gotten that little spike on my temperature, I could have easily gone another month without knowing I had to line up a new MS medication. I’d already gone through all the standard MS meds, with no positive results, which was why I was taking an off-label drug in the first place. I didn’t know what I would do without daclizumab. There wasn’t another drug out there I knew of.
There’s a happy ending to this little anecdote.
Yes, it’s true I didn’t get the answer I expected when I asked about my medication. But that unexpected answer motivated me to ask more questions. I managed to track down Bibi Bielekova, the neurologist and researcher who had first put me on daclizumab. She had a new gig at the NIH. I sent her an email on a Saturday, asking for her guidance. She replied almost immediately.
Once again, I didn’t get the answer I expected. Her email contained an offer I couldn’t refuse.
As it turned out, Dr. Bielekova was the one who had gathered all the remaining stock of daclizumab. She’d just negotiated a clinical trial for the next generation of daclizumab, called DAC HYP. She would be switching her patients who’d been on daclizumab long term to this new preparation. She wasn’t sure, but she thought she might have an opening to accommodate one more patient in the trial. My flights would be paid for. Then came the clincher, “The care at NIH, including the drug, is free.”
Now you know how I can afford to make all those trips to DC; I happened to ask the right question of the right person at precisely the right time. I’m going to try to make a habit of that.
My next entry will be a review of the formidable book, Dangerous Doses, written by Katherine Eban, another woman who isn’t afraid to ask questions about medications. The answers she’s uncovered may disturb you. Or they may just motivate you. Dangerous Doses has certainly motivated me. Our drugs are too important to remain a mystery.

Riding the Tide

“Lies are what the world lives on, and those who can face the challenge of the truth and build their lives to accord are finally not many, but the very few.” -Joseph Campbell
When I first went on daclizumab, I was euphoric. After going through six neurologists, and three MS medications, I finally found a brilliant neurologist who had uncovered an off-label medication that appeared to actually work.
My husband remained unmoved. He girded himself for every outcome, including the possibility that the medication would fail.
I shared his neutrality. At first. But then daclizumab surpassed my expectations. I had wanted nothing more than a medication that would prevent further exacerbations. What I got was a medication that did all that and more. Suddenly, I felt…able. I was able to hike and swim and lift weights. So I did. I pushed my suddenly able body to astonishing new limits. I rode the wave. I soared. My husband stood steadfast, like a beacon on the shore. He appreciated my toned body, but he didn’t expect it to last.
Indeed, it didn’t last.
No body lasts.
Love lasts.
Years passed. My physical capabilities became less and less astonishing. I had very much enjoyed becoming super-fit. As my physical parameters kept shrinking, I kept pushing back. It was with great reluctance that I finally learned to stop wanting more of my body than it can deliver.
This week, my hard-won acceptance was put to the test. I would have to also learn to stop wanting more of my medication than it can deliver.
The moment of truth arrived on Tuesday. I finally received the news my husband has been girding against ever since I started taking daclizumab, shortly after Tysabri was pulled from the market in ‘05. In all that time, my MRI’s have always come back with no further lesions. I’ve been lucky.
I’ve kept up on the preliminary results of the daclizumab trials, and while they are impressive, I couldn’t help but notice there hasn’t been a 100% cessation of disease activity across the board. Something had to give.
Now finally, something has.
My latest MRI came back with one enhanced lesion.
Just one little lesion, located in the so-called “silent area.” My local neurologist doesn’t think one lesion would be worth attacking with steroids. (And I must say, I’m relieved.)
The news of the MRI didn’t shock me. It was almost a comfort. I already knew I wasn’t well. It actually felt good to have some confirmation that there was a reason, even if that reason was inconveniently screaming from the “silent area.”
Daclizumab has worked wonders for me. But it is what is. It’s a medication—the best I’ve ever taken. It is not a miracle. It is not a cure.
Daclizumab is fallible. Just like me. That doesn’t mean it’s a failure.
I’m glad I haven’t been afraid to hope. Hope did me no harm, after all. Yes, I was once euphoric, but with good reason. I’d been given a reprieve. When the facts changed, I didn’t break. I changed along with them.
It’s been a good ride.

Type A

Today a specialist asked me if I had a certain personality.
I may have responded with an arch look.
He rephrased the question. “How would you describe yourself? Your personality? ”
I knew where he was going with that line of questioning. He wanted me to confirm his at-a-glance hypothesis that I am a Type A personality. Apparently The Specialist subscribes to the popular theory that Type A personalities are more prone to autoimmune diseases like multiple sclerosis (MS.)
“Has anyone ever told you that you are a control freak?”
He has nothing to gain from this line of reasoning. Think about it. Of the two of us, who is more likely to have a Type A personality: the guy with the medical degree, or the gal with the MFA?
I countered, “I think that’s just blaming the victim.”
I don’t (necessarily) have a bad personality. I just have a bad disease.
The Specialist kept describing the Type A personality. “Do you set goals for yourself?”
“Sure I do. And maybe I’ll accomplish all of those goals in a day, and maybe I’ll only accomplish only one. Or none at all. My body has the final say.”
“So you’ve reached Acceptance.”
Acceptance. I didn’t know what The Specialist would think about that. Acceptance doesn’t carry much of a cachet among Type A personalities.
I ventured, “I don’t know if that’s good.”
Though of course, I do know that it’s good. In my case, Acceptance is reasonable. All my MRI’s in the past four years have come back showing no new lesions. It’s appropriate to reach Acceptance when you’re on a drug that actually works.
The Specialist was happy to hear about the efficacy of the drug, even though he couldn’t find “daclizumab” or “DAC HYP” on his portable information device. (I probably spelled it all wrong.) He seemed more frustrated that he couldn’t shoehorn my personality into his Type A hypothesis. He kept trying. He listed high achievers who had autoimmune diseases. Montel Williams’ MS. Michael J. Fox’s Parkinsons.
I could think of one other thing these guys had in common, besides autoimmune diseases. “These guys are both celebrities. You kind of have to be a high achiever to become a celebrity.”
Whereas, you absolutely don’t have to be a high achiever to become a patient with MS. It’s just not that simple. I know plenty of high achievers. And most of them are not celebrities. Most of them don’t have an autoimmune disease, either. Nor do they deserve one.
I don’t deserve one, either.
“Do you think you used to have a Type A personality, back before your diagnosis?”
Back before my diagnosis, I’d majored in philosophy. What kind of Type A personality would be stupid enough to major in a thing like that?
The kind of Type A personality who thought English majors weren’t thinking hard enough.
Fine.
Have it your way, Specialist.
He proposed, “Some people think meditation could be helpful for people with multiple sclerosis.”
So now he’s “some people.”
“Meditation could be helpful for anyone.”
Touché.
I’m not making a very good case for my being a Type other than A.
The Specialist is an Ear, Nose, Throat guy.
He finally got around to asking me to stick out my tongue.
“You know, thousands of years of Chinese medicine has taught them to diagnose an entire person with one glimpse of the tongue.”
Diagnose?
Or simplify?
I had my tongue sticking out, so I couldn’t reply. And anyway, I didn’t think of a good comeback until after I left the examining room. Here it is: “For hundreds of years, Gypsies have said they can see a person’s fate with one glimpse of the palm.” You don’t see me rushing out to consult any gypsy. I consulted my half-Chinese husband instead. My half-Chinese husband said my sharp tongue was one of the first qualities he loved about me.
So maybe there is a perk to being Type A, after all.
The Specialist had said, “Things happen for a reason.”
I agree with half of that statement. Things happen. But If you’re going to look for a reason, don’t stick your tongue out at a Chinese guy, and thrust your palm onto a gypsy’s lap. That’s just silly. None of us are so special we should waste our breath whining, “why me?”
I may have a strong personality, but I don’t think it’s so strong it could cause a disease.
While I was waiting for The Specialist, I was reading Population 485, a delightful book by a Michael Perry, a volunteer fireman. He writes, “We are creatures of myth, hungry for metaphor and allegory, but most of all, hungry for sense.”
Sometimes our hunger for sense has us gobbling up nonsense.
Perry writes, “Surely, we tell ourselves, we can’t die just because we hit a patch of pebbles on a curve.”
But as Perry clearly illustrates, we can and we do.
We identify with our problems, with our illness, with our fate, instead of detaching, and researching cause and effect.
I think I’ve figured out why I contracted MS. It had nothing to do with my personality, and everything to do with my intestinal parasites.
Surprised? So was I.
It’s a wild, random world. (Is this the observation of a Type A control freak?)
Namaste.

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

The Answer

In the past few months, I’ve made the same complaint to every health care professional I meet. I report that my range of abilities is shrinking. That I don’t feel as fantastic as I used to back when I first went on daclizumab to treat the multiple sclerosis.
Year One on daclizumab, I was inspired to stretch myself to my physical limits. I was suddenly able to swim three hours a day. I could hike for an hour at a time. Every other day, I’d be off to the gym. Once a week, I’d attend an hour and half yoga class. Year One, I discovered I could stretch pretty far.
I am now in Year Four on daclizumab. I still stretch myself to my physical limits. But I tell you, those limits are not what they once were. Hike for an hour? I’m lucky to walk a few blocks. The funny thing is, I do feel lucky. But isn’t that also perverse? Shouldn’t I feel…outraged?
These days, if I decide to go to an hour and a half yoga class, that means I am implicitly deciding to write off any further physical activity for the remainder of my day. Which would be fine if I didn’t have a family. But I do have a family. My day is also my husband’s day, is also my son’s day, is also my dog’s day. My cat could care less if I walk or not, as long as I am still able pour his food. But the rest of my family is aversely affected if I overextend. They would probably prefer it if I would under-extend.
I wouldn’t want that. I’m not dead yet.
Every day becomes an experiment. I check in with my body more or less continually. If I don’t, my body checks in with me. More and more often, my body is saying, “Enough.” More and more often, I listen. I stop what I am doing. And I agree it is enough.
Is this acceptance? Or is it complacency?
I think there’s a difference. Acceptance is wonderful. But complacency is dangerous, particularly when you have a debilitating disease. You can mistake a medication for a cure. You can think you are doing enough, and by the time you find out you’re not, it’s too late.
Lately I’ve been wondering if daclizumab is doing enough.
I will whine to the nurses, or to the neurologists, “I feel like my physical range is shrinking.” I will speculate, “Maybe I don’t have Relapsing/Remitting MS anymore. Maybe I’m slipping into Secondary Progressive.”
No one can tell me. There’s no clear line to cross. What they can tell me is this: every MRI of my brain comes back showing no new lesions. How have I responded? I’ve asked to have an MRI taken of my spine. I want the whole story, even if it doesn’t have a happy ending. I don’t want to be living a lie. I want a clear answer to the question: why I do I feel I am in a long slow decline?
A very clear answer occurred to me just this afternoon. I was downtown, picking up a new pair of glasses, which happens to be my very first pair of bifocals. These glasses are totally and completely nerdy looking. It turns out my distance vision is -11.75. And all these years I thought the vision span only went to -10. It looks like the parameters for bad vision can stretch like the debt ceiling. Maybe the parameters for physical (dis)ability will stretch that way, too. And stretch. And stretch.
In the optician’s office, I thought of an explanation for this insidious phenomenon I’ve been experiencing. I am aging. That first year on daclizumab, I was still in my thirties. I’m not in my thirties any longer. Maybe the answer could be as simple as that.

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Gratitude

This morning, my local neurologist sat me down after performing my annual exam. For the exam, she’d checked my reflexes, had me follow her fingers with my eyes, had me push against her (“you’re strong”), had me stand on one leg, then on the other, had me walk on tip-toe, walk on my heels, walk a (flawless) heel-to-toe.
She prefaced her conclusion by saying, “You might be unhappy to hear to this.” Naturally, I was all ears. “How long did you say you’ve been diagnosed with MS?”
“Sixteen years. I’ve had MS for over twenty years.”
“Over twenty years? And you can still swim laps for thirty minutes?”
“But not for thirty five.”
She nodded. “Not for thirty five. Swimming laps for thirty minutes is really good for someone who has had MS for over twenty years. Maybe you don’t want to hear this, maybe you want to do better, but you are doing very well.”
I corrected her assumption. “I do want to hear that. I’m so glad I’m doing well.”
I’d reported to her, earlier, that the parameters of my abilities are shrinking. I’d wondered aloud if I was transitioning into Secondary Progressive MS. “I can’t do as much as I used to. I can’t walk as long, or as fast. Every time I push myself, the MS pushes back.”
She’d agreed with my tentative assessment. “I often see this kind of gradual decline with people who have a mild form of MS.”
There was once a time when I would have bristled at that remark. I would have resented the suggestion that my nemesis, MS, could be described as “mild.” There was nothing mild about the pain I was experiencing right there in her office, which was why I had swung my aching leg up onto her examination table and used the table as a barre to stretch.
There was a time when I wasn’t willing to believe the MS could get any worse.
I know better, now.
My neurologist sees worse cases of MS every day. At least these days she can tell her patients that there are effective medications —medications like the one I’m on—in the research pipeline. There’s much more reason for hope than there was back when I was diagnosed.
And that is why today’s post is simply a post of gratitude.
I am very grateful.
Grateful for having a fine local neurologist.
Grateful for having insurance.
Grateful for having a $15 co-pay.
Grateful for being on an effective medication.
Grateful to be receiving that medication free of charge through an NIH study.
Grateful to have friends and family who support me. (It’s not too late, by the way, to support me in the MS Walk.)
Grateful to be able to swim 30 minutes of laps.
Grateful you visited this blog.
Grateful that yesterday, somebody searched Google for “Happiness with Multiple Sclerosis” and ended up on here on Ms. Lab Rat. What a hoot!
Am I happy with Multiple Sclerosis, the disease? Nope. I can’t say that I am. I hate this disease.
But am I happy, despite Multiple Sclerosis? You bet.
I welcome all seekers of happiness, with or without Multiple Sclerosis.
Thanks for visiting.

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Commuter Drag

IMG_4232I am commuting today to the NIH for my monthly dose of MS medication. Look around the airport. You won’t pick me out. I am streamlined, like every serious commuter. I know which security line is actually the shorter one. I know the latest TSA regulations. I don’t flinch at the full body scanner. My boots are easily unzipped.
My red Chrome messenger bag is a red herring. I haven’t straddled a bicycle in over a year. Not since I kept falling off. But I can look like I still ride a bike. I can pass, at least for the outgoing flight.
I am not the one fumbling with her shoelaces, or the one in the wheelchair. I am not the one in that golfcart-like vehicle. I am not the one boarding the tram.
I am the one strutting to the gate.
I am not the one on the people mover. I am not the one on the elevator.
Whenever possible, I am not the one on the escalator. Whenever possible, I am the one on the stairs.
I am not the one sitting in the handicapped row.
I am not the one being offered the opportunity to pre-board.
I am the one who doesn’t look up as boarding is announced, who continues writing her notes by hand. No one needs to know I am a creature with brain shrinkage. That I’ve left my computer behind in too many taxis, too many times.
No one needs to know that on the way back, I may just be the one in the wheelchair, or the one in the golf-cart like vehicle. I may just give in and take the tram. I might take the elevator. I might accept an offer to preboard.
I am one of you. Until I’m not. Then I am of one them.
I am one of all of us. We each carry baggage. We each carry pain. Sometimes it’s visible. Sometimes it’s not.

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.