Let me take you on a journey, on a voyage to the stars
Where well meet a little alien upon the planet Mars.
Now this alien was famousthey still speak his name with awe
For hed 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 hed seen before,
And he knew that it had come from spaceit 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 hed 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.
Weve consulted many textbooks and its very plain to see
That you have got an Earth diseasethey call it SLE.
But sad to say on planet Mars we feel entirely sure
That this disease is quite unknownwe havent 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 Im grateful, but there's one thing I must know.
When I arrive on Earth, please tell me where I ought to go?
Well 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 didnt 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 dont know where Mars isis 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 theyd ever seen.
Some said the diagnosis was about as clear as mud,
For they hadnt any blood testsMartians dont 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 problemwere 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 youre really poor we havent 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 Ill make a guess
That this isnt only SLE, its also APS,
And weve got this drug called warfarin, its really very good
And if you havent tried it yet, Im 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 Weve never treated Martians herethe 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 wasnt any empty spacehe 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 textbooksmostly 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.
Were holding a big conference on lupus here next week,
And well tell them all about your casethen things wont look so bleak.
There will be so many experts there with different points of view
That Im 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 dont fulfil a single one of the ACR criteria,
And to prove that what I say is true, Ill go through all the signs with you.
You dont 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 isnt 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 hed 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.
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Notes |
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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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