Still In The Family

A couple of days back I wrote about not having major chest-related health problems as an adult despite my fears related to this in very early childhood. Today my focus is on not having to walk on crutches or get around in a wheelchair. I have never seriously considered the possibility of having to deal with such a situation - well, not until last December. I don't think it's likely to happen at this point in my life, but I'm now aware that I should have been considering the strong possibility of such for many years previously and it looks like I've been very lucky in this regard. The strange thing is that it took me until December to realise the obvious, which tends to suggest some sort of denial mechanism was operating - or that I'm fabulously obtuse.

The moment of realisation came in a conversation with Bob and Cynthia, when Noi and I popped in on them just before Christmas. Bob, who I always called Billy as a child, is a sort of cousin, but not really, for complicated and unimportant reasons I've never entirely understood. I've never actually wanted to understand them, the simple fact being he's a great bloke, with a much better understanding of the Connor family history than I have.

He was telling me about my late Uncle Jim's family and how they are faring - very sadly, not too well. Uncle Jim, by the way, was my Dad's twin brother. They were not identical twins though, fortunately for me, as I'll try to explain. Uncle Jim was a really nice guy with a much more obvious sense of humour than my Dad, and all the time I knew him was crippled. The family had it that this was a result of his experiences during the war in the Burmese jungle. (A terrifying place by the way for the ordinary English soldier of the period.) In fact, I think I still vaguely believed this prior to talking to Bob, though I'm pretty sure I'd been put right years ago.

Eventually it was determined that the problem was Multiple Sclerosis. Except it now turns out it wasn't.

My Uncle Bert, the elder brother of Jim and Jack, also developed problems walking and was eventually confined to a wheelchair. At this point more perceptive readers will have figured out the cases were most likely connected. But the family didn't, not for quite a while. Peter, my Uncle Bert's only son, who was a bit older than me and went to the same grammar school, died tragically young, in his thirties I think, following a terrible accident. Uncle Jim's children, four of them, are all alive today. But cousin David, the eldest, is crippled, as is cousin Martin, who's a bit younger than me. And recently cousin Margaret, who was in the same class as I was in primary school, has also had to start using crutches. According to Bob that came as a big surprise as it was obvious to all and sundry (except me) that something very nasty was being carried in the genes of the male branch of the family (which the docs had figured wasn't M.S., which is generally seen as non-hereditary despite the genetic factors involved) but the female side appeared to be safe. Until now.

It looks as if my sister and myself have been spared. So, again, I'm writing about a kind of non-experience, and gratefully so. Except that somehow in blithely ignoring the threat to myself I've contrived not to care enough for those who have and are suffering from the terrible reality of that experience.