Wednesday, May 11, 2011

My birthday surprise


March, 2008
            Today is my birthday (if you couldn’t already guess from the title of this blog)! Unfortunately, birthdays in my family meant we took a trip to the doctor’s office together. Even thought its supposed to be just the one person who gets the yearly check-up, my parents just love to get an extra check-up here and there. When we arrived, the doctor smiled and said, “So you’re the birthday girl!” She greeted my parents and shook my brother’s hand. A strange look appeared on her face, and she asked my parents if she could talk to them in private.
            Then she took my brother into a room, which made me a little upset. Why should he get all the attention on my birthday? About 10 minutes later, we all went into a room and the doctor started explaining to us about a disease called Myotonic dystrophy. I felt so smart because I knew what she was talking about! She then informed us that she fears my brother Phil has it. This made my happy birthday mood quickly change to a worried one. She continued and said she can usually tell just by a handshake because affected people take longer to loosen their grip. Just to be sure, they would perform electromyography on both of my parents. This meant that the doctor would place a tiny needle in the muscle and listen for myotonia, which sounds like a plane crashing. Then for Phil and me, the doctor took blood so she could examine the DNA and determine whether he had it and if I was possibly affected, too. She said that these were the current diagnostic procedures that replaced the need of a muscle biopsy, much to our relief. She told us that the disease affects one in eight thousand people, and it is common. The test results would come in about a month, and in the mean time we should go to her for any questions or concerns.
            Before I left, the doctor attempted to reach out to me by handing me a book titled: “Everything you need to know about Myotonic dystrophy.” This wasn’t the present I was expecting today…

No comments:

Post a Comment