Someone once asked me in an interview how things would have been different if I’d been diagnosed with multiple sclerosis (MS) at the time of my first symptoms and would I have wanted to know then.
It was an interesting mental game to play, and I came to unexpected conclusions.
When I had what both I and my neurology team deduce was an MS exacerbation, I was an enlisted navigator in the U.S. Coast Guard, and scientists were over a decade away from developing the first approved disease-modifying drug for MS.
I would have been medically discharged from the Coast Guard. I wouldn’t have gone on to culinary school. And I would have missed out on the myriad career and personal opportunities that presented themselves as a consequence.
I don’t think I could have handled the “diagnose and adios” method of MS care that many experienced in the 1980s.
What would have become of me? I’ll never know, but I don’t think I would have liked it much.
With Dupuytren’s Contracture, I’m Catching It Early
Now I’m facing another potentially debilitating condition, and I’m looking at it through a lens I’ve been polishing with the rag called MS for most of my adult life.
About two months ago I noticed a bump on the palm of my left (nondominant) hand. It’s below the callus pad at the base of my ring finger, just touching my “heart line” for you palm readers. It was just a bump — maybe “nodule” is the more appropriate term — but it wasn’t sore or uncomfortable in any way, so I thought no more about it.
Well, last week I noted that it had increased in size a bit and that under the skin, I could see a bit of radiation away from the nodule up the palm and toward both my ring and third fingers.
I’ve seen this condition in its advanced stages in friends, so I had an inkling that I knew what I was looking at.
Fortuitously, I had a prescheduled appointment with my GP for annual blood work and to request a follow-up MRI of my foot for an issue I’ve been rehabilitating for a couple of months now.
I took advantage of the meeting to show her my hand and said, “Is this what I think it is?”
She confirmed my suspicion: Dupuytren's contracture.
This condition shortens and thickens the fascia of the palm and can cause one or more fingers to retract and pull toward the palm. In advanced cases, the fingers cannot be straightened, making the use of the hand both difficult and painful.
Anticipating Life With Two Hand Disabilities
Just what a guy with MS wants to hear: that he’s got another condition that’s going to make anything requiring dexterity from his hand more difficult than it already is. Between MS weakness and intention tremor, already Lloyds of London wouldn’t insure anything I pick up with my left hand, let alone with one or more fingers being pulled permanently palmward.
In this case, I’m aware of my new condition well ahead of the 15 years (or so) I lived with MS before being diagnosed. It’s another incurable disease of unknown origin, and there is no real treatment available. It may be genetically linked, but I’m not aware of anyone in my family who’s ever had it. (Wow, that sounds very familiar, doesn’t it?)
At this point, all I can do is keep an eye on it and maybe try some unproven stretches and hand exercises to try to extend the time before it gets worse.
I can also hope that I’ll have one of the milder cases, which simply causes my current nodules, rather than shrinking the fascia, but the signs of tightening cords under the skin are already beginning to show.
Using Lessons Learned From MS to Adapt
So I’ll take the lessons I’ve learned from this life with multiple sclerosis and use them as a template for this new condition.
It will be different, but there will be similarities. The symptoms of Dupuytren’s will be layered over my MS difficulties in that extremity, and I’ll figure out a way to get on with things like I’ve done these past decades.
I say that as if it will be easy, but I didn’t “say” it. I typed it … with the very fingers that may soon curl under and make the very act of getting my thoughts onto the screen even more difficult than they already are.
I guess my MS just added a plus one to its table of already demanding customers.
Wishing you and your family the best of health.
Cheers,
Trevis
