“Right this way Lieutenant” said the Petty Officer, directing my wife and I through a darkened doorway. Across the dark room, I saw a thin bright light shining between floor to ceiling curtains. Our guide ushered us towards the sliver of light which grew in width and intensity as we walked nearer to it. I was able to see three empty chairs through the curtains, one chair facing two. Once through the curtains, I realized the darkened room was actually the side stage area of the Naval Hospital’s auditorium. We were on the stage! Looking out into the audience I saw approximately 50 of the seats occupied by eager, young faced, uniformed interns and residents, some of whom I knew personally. Instantly, what was about to take place became apparent. It was October 22, 1994 at the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, MD. For what I had thought I was sent to Bethesda, an expert second opinion by Dr. John Kurtzke, was actually the monthly neurology lecture given to the Naval Hospitals’ house staff by Admiral Kutzke. I was the subject of the day.
Dr. Kurtzke, a pioneering neuro epidemiologist, who is best known for his creation of the Expanded Disability Status Scale in 1983, still universally utilized by the medical community, was a professor of neurology at Georgetown University and Rear Admiral in the US Naval Reserves. His “one weekend a month” was spent at the Naval Hospital in Bethesda, lecturing residents and consulting on difficult cases. Was I a difficult case? Likely not. But as Phil Catron, my neurologist back at the San Diego Naval Medical Center said, “Let’s let the expert make the call”.
Earlier that week, my wife, who had just entered the third trimester of a twin pregnancy, and I boarded a military MedEvac flight, leaving from Marine Corps Air Station Miramar in San Diego, CA. The Airforce C-17 MedEvac plane had been configured to transport gurneyed, as well as rear facing seated patients and passengers. The plane zig-zagged across the western half of the country from air base to air base for the next twelve hours, picking up and dropping off patients and passengers along the way. Eleven take offs and landings in total. Finally, exhausted from hours of sitting and what seemed like flying thousands of miles, the cockpit announced that we were landing at our final destination for the evening. I looked out my window and caught my first ever glimpse of breath taking landmarks that up till then I had only heard about and seen pictures of in textbooks, and thought would likely never see again. Just outside my window, so close it felt as though I could touch it, was the illuminated Gateway Arch standing majestically alongside the “Mighty Mississippi” River. Moments later our plane touched down at Scott Air Force Base.
Our flight to Bethesda, we were informed was to takeoff in two days. My wife and I spent most of our wait enjoying our “posh” accommodations which consisted of a hospital room with two hospital beds and a bathroom. We did, however, wander the grounds and catch a movie at the post cinema. The following morning, we boarded another C-17 MedEvac plane and continued our trip to Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland, only this time we zig-zagged across the eastern half of the country. After landing and a short military bus ride, I reported to the Bethesda Naval Hospital for “duty”.
The next morning, Admiral Kurtzke, in dress blue uniform, sitting opposite my wife and me, also in dress blues, on stage, and in front of watchful eyes eager to soak in the knowledge, expertise, and wisdom that Dr. Kurtze possessed, reviewed my medical history, test results, and performed a neurologic exam on me. Periodically he lectured to and asked questions, a practice commonly known in the world of medical education as “pimping”, derived from “put in my place”, of the audience. At the end of the “pimp” session, Dr. Kurtzke turned his attention back to my wife and me. In his gruff but comforting voice he said “Well, I tell ya, it’s looking like a duck. It’s waddling like a duck. And I’ll be, if it ain’t quackin’ like a duck. Dr. Yanuck, its a duck. You have multiple sclerosis.”
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