Profunksticated

Profunksticated used to ponder this question: What are the odds of two brothers marrying women from different parts of the country who both come down with autoimmune diseases?

My wife, or The Spouse, as I like to refer to her in this blog, was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 2003. She keeps it in check with injections of a drug called Copaxone. My younger brother’s wife came down with rheumatoid arthritis back in the early 1990s, after they’d been married just five years. She’s now about 44.

Both diseases are the result of the immune systems committing treason, to use a political/legal term. Instead of protecting the body from invaders, they attack body tissue. MS attacks the brain, while RA attacks joint tissue.

My sister-in-law’s RA also attacked her lungs. She’s been on oxygen for several years. She was ruled out as a lung transplant candidate a couple of years ago due to the risk of damage to her esophagus.

In the last six months, her condition has worsened. Sis-in-law has been in and out of the hospital fighting various bouts of pneumonia. She’s been hospitalized again last night, and this time, she’s been placed on a ventilator. As I write this, she’s in critical but stable condition. Even if she gets through this, doctors say that, at best, she has one to two years to live.

I think for my brother, the situation is finally hitting home. He sounded to me like he was in a daze when I spoke to him last night. His two sons, 18 and 13, were emotionally busted up at seeing their mother lying in a hospital bed attached to all manner of tubes.

Again, we’ll need your prayers.

Back to my original question. If this article from Tuesday’s Washington Post is true, then the odds of two siblings marrying women with faulty immune systems aren’t all that long.

Meanwhile, my wife tells me our daughter will need at least a month of physical therapy in recovering from her being struck by a car. Our daughter, who’s been a trouper, finally broke down emotionally yesterday. That’s good. Tears are cleansing.

That’s it for now.

Peace.