Chapter Seven

A search for Answers

In 1978 Joan and I, with our son Dave, took a trip to England. Dave had been stationed there, in the Air Force, and had made friends who invited us to stay with them. This was a marvelous opportunity for us. England is where Joan and I had begun our married life and we enjoyed every minute of our revisit.

On our return to our home in southern California, I received a letter from a man in London, I'll call him Dan, who had Myasthenia Gravis. Through a mutual friend he had heard about my use of meditation and ask for details. Now, up until this time I had given little thought to writing anything down much less communicating the things that had been working for me. Dan's letter forced me to try and I soon discovered that my understanding of MG was very incomplete.

My first mistake was not simply writing him what I had done. The things that worked for me. Just give him the facts.  Let him figure out why. Unfortunately it's just not in me to be simple. Joan says if you ask me the time I'll build you a clock. True!

I settled in to find the reasons and my thoughts led back to Dr. Brown. From the contacts that I had made, so far, all MG people did seem to have similar personality traits. The one that stuck out the farthest was their drive. They didn't give up. Many had overcome huge obstacles in their lives. Yes, their personalities were very much alike but what exactly was the element that related to MG? The conclusion? Prior to the onset of MG there had always been a strong pressure to perform. This pressure didn't always come from outside i.e. parents, coaches, teachers etc. Many times it was internally brought on by love, loyalty or a strong sense of duty. These are all good things to have but, like all good things, I sensed that they could turn on us with disastrous results.

What would be the circumstances?

Depression and/or Anxiety had to play a role.

I came up with a theory and sent it off to Dan.

Put simply: What would happen if this guy with a "Never say die" personality met a really devastating emotional trauma? The irresistible force meeting the immovable object? Something would have to give.

Dan was not impressed.

Thousands of people every day met this criteria without getting MG. They had nervous break downs or became ill but didn't get MG. In fact, if this was all it took, MG would be very common instead of rare. And why, Dan asked, would he only have MG in his eyes and other people had it in their legs, arms, throat etc.

Dan was in the process of earning his Masters Degree and I wasn't going to slip something over on him.

I knew Dan was right and his rejection only made me try harder.

My theory was incomplete---Something was missing.

Trying to get information from other MG people proved impossible. The time just before they contracted the condition was especially difficult and my mind returned to the idea of a psychiatrist. If their secrets were buried so deep that it required analysis I didn't stand a chance of uncovering something that would be of help.

The answer had to lie within my own life.

Every cell in my body and mind resisted thinking about James Connally Air Force Base, but that's the place where the answers were, and back I knew I must go. Just trying to think of this period in my life was very hard but I knew when I was getting close to something of importance. The tears would come. I had learned that this was a sure fire indicator of something that my mind was trying to protect me from.

It had all started in the summer of 1957. I had just been assigned to James Connally Air Force base. I was a Staff Sergeant and my job was repairing airborne radar sets. My wife, Joan, our two sons and myself had recently returned from a three year tour in England.

No one had prepared us for the differences in pay and living expenses. Bad judgment on my part found us with a new car, new furniture, and more bills than we could handle. The burden of providing for our family was becoming heavier each day.

I had four years in-grade as a Staff Sergeant and was overdue for a promotion so that hope was there. In the meantime I signed up for flying status to add fifty-five dollars to our paycheck.

Soon our third son was born and a year later Joan delivered twin girls and still no promotion.

The Air Force picked this time to have a review board. They ask me questions and at the end, decided that, based on the opinion of their expert, I no longer was qualified to hold a seven level or technicians rating. I needed that seven level rating in order to be eligible for promotion to Tech. Sergeant. A Death sentence would not have been more devastating under the circumstances.

I simply am not good enough with words to communicate the severity of depression that I felt at that time. Add the depression to the anxiety of the test hops, test hops that I was trapped into flying by our financial dilemma, and the outcome spelled disaster.

It was not the depression that did me in, or the anxiety, it was the overblown sense of duty and a personality that refused to accept defeat that finally did the job.

I knew, at this point, in my continuing investigation, that I had two of the things that led to MG but I didn't really know anything more than when I first wrote Dan with the immovable object and the irresistible force idea. All I had really done was nail it down, so to speak. On the sunny side I was now free to go on and look for a third element. An element that I knew had to be there or MG would be very common.

It's amazing how a person believes that everything that they do is normal. Finding a facet of ones life that is not normal, through self examination, proved to be very difficult.

After months of effort I slowly came to the following conclusions: It seems my "Do or Die" personality was formed very early as a result of my small size and birth order. Being the fourth child of five I had to try harder to achieve the same results as my brothers and sisters.

Examples:

Between the age of five and about ten I recall trying to keep up with the neighborhood gang of kids all older and bigger than myself. This is when I remember playing by myself a lot and indulging in frequent daydreaming. I believe, now, that this behavior provided relief from all that "keeping up"

At the age of twelve I joined the boy scouts. They did not believe anyone that small could possibly be twelve until I showed them my birth certificate. I went on many hikes, keeping up with the troop, and always made the top of the mountain. It's true I usually barfed when we arrived but I made it.

When I was twenty I applied for a job in a Lumber mill in Oregon. They needed someone to pull lumber on the "Green Chain". This was one of the harder jobs in the mill and the owner looked me up and down and proclaimed, "Sorry, your just too small to do the job." I had been told that I was too small all of my life so his statement wasn't exactly big news to me. I looked the man in the eye and said, "You let me work for two weeks and if you don't like what you see, then don't pay me." Well, he didn't have a whole lot to loose so, with a big grin, he gave me the job. I know he fully expected me to fall flat on my face within a few days, but I had other plans and collected my pay when the two weeks were through. When I left to join the Air Force this same man told me that I had a job with him anytime I wanted it. Great reinforcement for an attitude that said, "I can do anything anyone else can do and I can do it better."

There didn't seem to be a limit to what I could achieve, if I tried, and I considered this a precious asset.

Further review of my life revealed numerous occasions when I experienced what is usually referred to as "Super Strength".

Was this ability to push myself beyond normal limits a precondition to the onset of Myasthenia Gravis? I thought so, and with excitement, wrote it all to Dan.

Dan rejected the Super Strength idea and I never got the chance to argue the point as he moved, leaving no forwarding address. I would certainly hate to think my theory had anything to do with his sudden disappearance. At any rate I owe him a thanks for getting me started on this book.

It is my belief that Dan's reaction was based on his being a scholar with MG only in his eyelids. He avoided physical work and must have laughed at the idea of himself and super strength.

The idea isn't so ridiculous if you picture this scholar working long hours, past the time when he should sleep and forcing his eyes to stay open when they demanded to close. It is feasible that he could develop or experience Super Strength in his eyes only. As I said, Dan was gone and I no longer had a sounding board. I would have to go it alone.

I called the trait that showed up in the form of Super Strength and came from a "Never say Die" personality, an Enhanced ability to communicate Mind to muscle.

This, then, was the third element. The one that made MG so rare. Without this ability a person would not get MG. How many people possessed it? Out of this number how many would come up against the other two elements at the right time and with the needed intensity? Not many, I think, so here you had the making of a rare disease!

Pleased with the progress, I felt close to being able to formulate a theory but still needed the answer to the question, How? How did these three things work? I put together a number of possibilities and they all fell apart in short order.

It was time to rest.