The appropriate management of SLE on the planet Mars

Anisur Rahman

Let me take you on a journey, on a voyage to the stars

Where we’ll meet a little alien upon the planet Mars.

Now this alien was famous—they still speak his name with awe—

For he’d suffered from an illness never seen on Mars before.

Now Martians as a rule are very shy and far from brave,

And they live beneath the surface in their well-appointed caves.

But this Martian was unusual for, alone among his race,

He dreamed of exploration and of travelling in space.

By day he roamed incessantly the dusty plains of Mars,

And by night he stared up into space, examining the stars.

One day he came upon a rock, like none he’d seen before,

And he knew that it had come from space—it was a meteor.

He stooped to touch the blackened stone and found it was still warm;

He marvelled at its craggy face and wondered at its form.

That night as he lay in his cave he started to feel ill;

His joints and muscles ached so much he feared he’d caught a chill.

Next morning he found that a rash had spread across his cheeks.

His mouth felt full of ulcers; he had terrible fatigue,

And when he took a deep breath in, his chest was full of pain.

He had a touch of pleurisy, each breath became a strain.

He went to see a doctor, who exclaimed in tones of shock:

‘You have caught a space disease, contracted from that rock.’

A team of experts tried in vain to diagnose his ills,

And they treated him with several of the latest Martian pills.

But nothing worked, he just felt even more ill than before,

Till the experts said ‘It's time for us to test that meteor.

For once we know where it came from, we feel we can declare

That the cause of your strange illness will be located there.’

They tested it for hours, then announced in tones of mirth:

‘Its clear to us this meteor is from the planet Earth.

We’ve consulted many textbooks and its very plain to see

That you have got an Earth disease—they call it SLE.

But sad to say on planet Mars we feel entirely sure

That this disease is quite unknown—we haven’t got a cure.

So you must take a spaceship, leave the planet of your birth

And seek a cure for SLE from doctors on the Earth.’

The patient said ‘I’m grateful, but there's one thing I must know.

When I arrive on Earth, please tell me where I ought to go?’

‘We’ll say one thing’, the experts said, ‘to help you on your way.

The richest nation on the Earth is called the USA,

So you should start your journey there and I think we all agree

That you need to see the President in Washington DC.’

So the Martian took a spaceship and he left for Earth at dawn,

And he made a perfect landing there upon the White House lawn.

The FBI were quite amazed to see this strange outsider:

They thought it was a new disguise invented by Al-Qaeda.

They tried to shoot him, but he was immune to their attack,

And they realized he meant no harm when he didn’t shoot them back.

He said ‘Take me to your leader, for I really need to see

If he can recommend some doctors to cure my SLE.’

They reached the Oval Office and gave the door a push.

‘There's a guy from Mars to see you sir’, they said to President Bush.

He said ‘Gee, this guy looks pretty weird. Are you sure that he's a voter?

And I really don’t know where Mars is—is it somewhere in Dakota?’

A conference of doctors was called without delay:

Lupologists from NYC, from Pittsburgh and LA.

From all across America, they came along to see

If they could cure an alien who might have SLE.

Some wanted to give steroids and azathioprine,

And others said this was the oddest case they’d ever seen.

Some said the diagnosis was about as clear as mud,

For they hadn’t any blood tests—Martians don’t have any blood.

At last the team of experts came to a resolution

That i.v. cyclophosphamide would be the best solution.

But they said ‘There's just one problem—we’re not trying to be funny

But treatment in the USA will cost a lot of money.

Have you got lots of savings and health insurance too?

Because if you’re really poor we haven’t got much help for you.

But you could go to Canada, where drugs are really cheap,

And in winter it's as cold as Mars and the snow lies six feet deep.

Or you could go to England, to the land of Tony Blair,

Where the NHS is free because it's socialized health care.’

So he got back in his spaceship, thanking them for all their clues,

And he flew across to London to consult with Graham Hughes.

Now Dr Hughes thought carefully, then said ‘I’ll make a guess

That this isn’t only SLE, its also APS,

And we’ve got this drug called warfarin, its really very good

And if you haven’t tried it yet, I’m quite convinced you should.

We use it to treat headaches and confusion in the old.

It cures every form of APS, it cures the common cold,

And it's highly efficacious against all forms of disaster.

This was published many years ago by my friend Munther Khamashta.’

Khamashta saw the alien, and he frowned and stroked his beard.

‘There's something in this case,’ he said ‘which seems a little weird.’

They examined him for hours as he stood upon the floor,

And then they sat and thought a bit, and then they thought some more.

They finally concluded it was very strange to meet

A patient who had purple skin, two heads and sixteen feet.

They said ‘We’ve never treated Martians here—the thought would be absurd—

So you should go to UCL, to David Isenberg.

We hear that he has strange ideas, though that may not be true.

In any case, he may have met a patient just like you.’

Well, the Martian was fed up by now and feeling quite unwell,

So he took the short trip on the tube to get to UCL.

And he went to David's secretary, who offered him a chair,

Then showed him to the office and asked him to wait there.

At this point in my story I would like to say a word

About the office furniture of David Isenberg.

That office was so messy that the Martian was perplexed.

There wasn’t any empty space—he soon became quite vexed.

There were papers on the tables, on the chairs, and even more

Were scattered on the window sills and right across the floor.

And the Prof had many textbooks—mostly written by himself,

And a group of glossy photographs were standing on a shelf.

There was a picture of his family, a dog (whose name was Fido)

And one of his favourite rock star whose name, of course, was ... Jennifer Lopez, obviously.

David heard the Martian's story and said ‘Please have no fear,

For I have had a brainwave which will soon make things quite clear.

We’re holding a big conference on lupus here next week,

And we’ll tell them all about your case—then things won’t look so bleak.

There will be so many experts there with different points of view

That I’m sure that one of them will have the perfect cure for you.’

So the European Lupus Meeting 2005

Was enlivened by a Martian patient being presented live.

The history was complex and, to make things even worse,

It was presented by a renegade who did it all in verse.

When he finally fell silent, a tumult gripped the hall;

But suddenly a single voice was raised above it all.

It belonged to Caroline Gordon, from Birmingham, UK,

And she said to the Martian ‘There is something I must say.

You have been misguided by those doctors up on Mars.

Perhaps they misread their textbooks or their thoughts were on the stars,

For their diagnosing lupus was an act of mass hysteria.

You don’t fulfil a single one of the ACR criteria,

And to prove that what I say is true, I’ll go through all the signs with you.

You don’t have any chest pain left; your heart sounds perfect through your vest.

Your mental state is AOK; you had no blood tests anyway.

Your rash has vanished long ago; your urine has a perfect flow.

You do have joint pain that is true, but that is all that's wrong with you

And in conclusion, we must not be blinded by nostalgia.

This isn’t really SLE, its just fibromyalgia!

The audience at first thought this was quite absurd,

But they soon began to recognize the truth behind her words.

And the Martian was delighted to leave this happy scene—

They told him to take exercise and amitriptyline.

So he got back in his spaceship and he soared towards the stars,

And soon he reached his dusty home upon the planet Mars.

He was greeted as a hero, for he’d more than proved his worth.

He was the first of all his race to walk upon the Earth.

He made a full recovery and now his life's a ball,

For he's healthy, free, and proud to be

The most famous Martian of them all.


    Notes
 
This poem was composed for the opening ceremony of the European Lupus Meeting 2005, which was held from 3 to 5 March 2005 at the Royal College of Physicians in London.

The ceremony featured a speech and a performance by Dido, a world-famous singer who has a personal interest in SLE. There was also a performance by the marginally less famous Lupus Dave and the Davettes, featuring the President of the BSR on lead vocals.

I would like to thank David Isenberg, Graham Hughes, Munther Khamashta and Caroline Gordon for kindly allowing me to use their names in this poem.





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