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Show 402 Epilogue It lasted six and one-half years-Jhe pump was removed one year into (the remission, though the catheter remains, tied off at the pump end, snaking its way around vital things and into my dura. The port-a-cath was removed a year following that. The grafts remain in my arm - they will probably never be removed. Medical science and cynics and skeptics in general might say a lot of things about why the disease reheated - maybe the Baclofen, finally being delivered in accurate doses for more than just a few months, made a more permanent change to my own neuro-hormones, causing my body to produce more GABA on its own. Or perhaps the IVIGg did give me the needed anti-antibody. Or possibly my own body somehow figured out how to produce its own anti-antibody. I actually have no doubt that one of those things, or something like it, did happen. But I also know by whose Hand I believe it was that it actually did happen. And I know I did nothing to deserve it. I asked for a break and I simply got it. Though I was well for a time, I even then was not perfectly healthy. The disease has taken its toll on my body, especially as it ages. Even during those first few years, I could not really run, I did not have good balance and I still had to pace myself. My memory remains dicey. I worked for those first few years as an advocate for people having disability, but that became impossible with time. At this writing, the disease has obviously returned and is slowly advancing once again. |