by Lois Ruskai Melina
My father’s spine had fused into one solid mass of bone before I was born. Bowed forward, it might have been the tusk of an ancient beast stood on one end. With his back forming a C and the C-vertebrae of his neck permanently twisted slightly to the left, he invariably gazed down and a little off-center. He had no mobility in his backbone to counter-balance his hip movement, which put an awkward bounce in his walk. To see what was in front of him, he would pause every dozen steps or so, bend his knees to thrust his hips down, and in doing so, bring his eyes to a horizontal plane. He looked then like an unfinished question mark.
I see men who would be my father’s age, had he lived, with that characteristic walk and stoop, and know immediately they, too, have ankylosing spondylitis, a trochaic-sounding disease whose name literally means the vertebrae have become inflamed and fixated. The disease mainly attacks young men. No one knows what causes it or why it targets males, although an autoimmune response is suspected and there are markers that indicate genetic factors make some people more susceptible.