A zebra in a horse world
According to my diagnosing Rheumatologist, there is a quaint saying in the medical community that he learned as a med student: If one hears a 'clop, clop, clop, clop' coming down the road, one runs to the window expecting, of course, to see a horse.
But sometimes, it's a zebra instead.
On the day he told me this small bit of inside medical humour, he had already told me the astounding good news that I was now the proud owner of my own pet zebra - an autoimmune disease with a name few people before then or since then have ever understood when I pronounced it out loud. It is Antiphospholipid Antibody Syndrome.
Hoorah. At the time, I could hardly pronounce it, either. It was a huge relief to eventually learn that what few people did know about it reduced it to the simple APS designation. Easier to say, much easier to spell, too. And as a little bit more time went by, I also learned that in the UK, most of Europe, and in the rest of the world, it was called Hughes Syndrome. That too was easier to explain. Most people hearing the Antiphospholipid Antibody Syndrome syllables roll off my tongue with ease (with practice, of course) never understood beyond, 'anti - WHAT?!' The explanations usually deteriorated from there.
So what makes being a zebra in a horse world such novel experience? Well, I can only tell you what few things I have learned since being pronounced one. But they are things that some of you may relate to.
The first thing about being a zebra in a horse world has to do with the nature of autoimmune disease itself. When you think about it, that's just a really zebra sort of affair, isn't it? I mean, it isn't as if you have the mumps or measles, gall stones or a broken leg. Goodness knows those are bad enough, but at least they are explainable. They stem from viruses and bacteria, accidents, and other known medical risks. Why the body turns on ITSELF is still a mystery. Why it identifies part of its own structure as something that needs to come under attack from itself is just a really 'zebra among horses' type of event.