“The details of my life are quite inconsequential…….Very well, where do I begin?”
Dr. Evil, (Austin Powers International Man of Mystery) 1997.
For my first post, I suppose I had better give a bit of background.
I joined the army in September 1995 and did basic training and 13F AIT at Ft. Sill, Ok. From there I went to airborne training at Ft. Benning, Ga, followed by RIP (Ranger Indoctrination Program…..called RASP now). After I surviv……um, completed that I was assigned as a forward observer to A/1/75 Ranger Regiment at Hunter Army Airfield, Ga. I went back to Ft. Benning for Ranger school in the late fall of 1997 and after a couple recycles (I was a private from one of the Ranger Battalions and was too dumb and stubborn to quit), I finally graduated in class 6-98. I got out in January 2000 at the rank of sergeant, went back to school and figured I’d never be back.
About 18 months later, however, I found myself missing the……..well, I’m not sure if it was any one thing, or even if I could put a name to it if it was. Regardless, right around the events of 9/11, I found myself joining the 20th Special Forces Group with the intention of being an 18D (Special Forces Medical Sergeant). I passed selection in the spring of 2002 and finished the qualification course in 2004. Deployments to Afghanistan and Iraq followed, as well as a teaching stint at the operations detachment. It was there in 2009 that I felt the first symptoms of MS which I wrote off to various (ignored) injuries.
After returning from a tour in Iraq in 2011, I was aware something was wrong, took a staff position at 1/20 SFG(A), and started to address all the problems I’d been ignoring over the years. I had a second knee surgery that December (the first was between selection and the start of the SFQC) and an ankle reconstruction in July 2012. Still, the limping, foot drop, and balance issues were getting worse and were now complicated with heat intolerance and occasional double vision. In 2013, on a whim and because I remembered being sick in 2006 in Afghanistan with a mysterious, self limiting fever, I had my titers for Q-fever checked. Sure enough the results were positive and the antibody ratio high enough to warrant treatment for chronic Q-fever. Near the end of that 18 month treatment when the titers improved, but the symptoms didn’t, the infectious disease doctor sent me to a neurologist who diagnosed me with multiple sclerosis on Valentine’s day 2014, after an MRI that showed lesions even I could see.
I started on 3 injections of Copaxone a week and started seeing an MS specialist. Sometime the following year, given my history and steady, unrelenting progression, the diagnosis was changed to primary progressive multiple sclerosis. I discontinued Copaxone and started taking Aubagio once daily. Both are for the relapsing form of MS, so neither was a help, but it was thought that Aubagio showed some promise of staving off long term disability, so the plan was to take it until a treatment for ppms came out. The Aubagio was apparently too tough on my liver, so it too was discontinued and other than medication for symptom relief, I took nothing for ms until Ocrevus came out. I was medically retired from the Army in November 2017 with 22 years all told and 19 years 2 months of active duty. The Ocrevus seems to have me stable for now and I’ll have my 9th infusion this coming October. That means the disease isn’t progressing, but the disability is, so I have an implanted, intrathecal baclofen pump to deal with the severe spacticity, and am in a wheelchair, with a goal of getting back on a rollator in the near future.
This is a quick(ish) overview, with more details to follow on various topics.