SELF—NO SELF

INTRODUCING OURSELVES AT THE M.S. DINNER
HELD IN THE OLD SPAGHETTI FACTORY IN SEATTLE
KAREN OUTS ME WITH THE DOCTOR

He's the one who fainted
at the last meeting
when the program started.

Don't faint in a room full of nurses.

The ambulance is on its way.

I'd just come from surgery.
Still full of anesthesia.
The nurse with M.S. sat next to us.

Three days after I told my husband
I had M.S. he left for good.

I was writing in my notebook
when my head hit the table.

Jim Bodeen
13 October 2010


WHAT'S THE BUZZ AT THE M.S. LECTURE

One million more women than men
between the ages of 20 and 40.
Winning the diagnosis feels like victory.
Women will be dismissed by doctors.

Slides of the brain. Plaque and white spots.
Multiple lesions and scars.
T-Cells are players migrating to the brain
and making mistakes, attacking the self.

Th1 and Th2 cells. Helper subsets.
Th1 produce inflammation. Th2 reduce inflammation.
Chemical messengers fuel Th1 response.
The vacuum cleaner of the immune system?

The immune cells learn to make mistakes.
That imprint looks like myelin, gets excited,
builds an arm. Memory T-Cells propagate attacks.
Electricity gets degraded. Axonal injury

strips and cuts myelin. Myelin's
a living cell, the protective covering
of axons—wire-like nerve fibers.
Oligodendrocytes protecting axons,

can get sick and hold onto itself, aimed
instead at attacking external myelin.
Self, non-self. Quiets the messenger.
Clinically silent attacking their own.

Blood-brain barrier. Science can create M.S.
in animals. Tendency to create Th2 cells.
Memory cells go into lymph nodes.
Ampyra keeps electrical charge higher.

Innate immune response has no memory.
Adaptive immune response contains memory.
Interrupt the chain of events.
Prevent damaging cells from entering.

How do you teach that new cell
to do what you did at three years of age?
How do we tell that new cell what to grow into?
Vitamin D. Protect axons. Remyelinate.

Jim Bodeen
19 May 2010—14 October 2010
Seattle/Yakima