Before the Fall

  June 17, 2016 was just another day in the life process. Early in the morning he had gone to his usual duty of getting the kids on the school bus, then home, to the post office and Stewart's, and worked on the pool. After lunch, he went to Wiley's to get chlorine for the pool. One wrong misstep while lifting the bag, and life changed forever. That was the last day he drove; the Subaru, recovered from the store, remained in the driveway for months. His trip to the Emergency Room was uneventful. He had complained of "an awful shock to his back," but they chalked it up to the fall, and discharged him in a matter of hours, nothing broken they told him.
   Since that day, he has not only not driven a car, but that day was the last day he walked unaided.
   Doctors say his condition, unspecified as it was, is progressive, and the fall, and the recovery time thereafter,just made him more aware of the progression of the disorder. He has seen 4 different neurologists, traveled to 2 clinical trial sites, had a remote diagnosis from  U. Mass, participated in a study of neurological disorders through a statewide study, and has completed drug regimens which failed to be of even minimal help.
    At the time of the fall, he had no health problems, took no prescription drugs, and even at an older age was more active and fit than many who were years younger.
     The summary of his diagnoses includes a rare form of a variant overlapping with an even rarer form of another. Probably, they say, as there's no way to confirm a diagnosis in a spectrum of more than 200 possibilities.
   Knowing more now than I did then, it is all too true that the medical profession  tends to fall in lockstep when it comes to peer review. A second opinion, a third, and infinite others, are regurgitations of what has gone before.
   Hope for recovery at first prevailed, then dimmed, only to die. I will never believe that a hard fall would trigger any latent symptoms into an abrupt and  complete immobility.