By Tori Marlan
Donna wanted to believe that the bee venom would make her well. Two years before, when she was 28, she’d learned that she had multiple sclerosis. Myelin, the fatty tissue that surrounds and protects nerve fibers, had broken down in her central nervous system, hindering the flow of nerve impulses to and from her brain. Symptoms of multiple sclerosis can range from numbness to paralysis. The course of the disease varies; it’s often characterized by random waves of attacks and remissions. Despite periods of temporary relief, people usually get progressively worse.
Not much is known about who gets multiple sclerosis or why, and traditional medicine offers no cure. Donna’s doctors pumped her full of drugs to alleviate her symptoms and tried to be optimistic, saying perhaps the disease would go into a long remission, but they scoffed at her interest in alternative treatments. Despite a heavy Polish accent and an occasional struggle to find words, Donna wasn’t easily intimidated. “You read all those smart books and finished medical school, but you can’t help me,” she recalls telling one doctor. “I’m going to do whatever I have to do.”
Moments after Luisi left, Donna picked up the phone and called Ross Hauser, the doctor whose name appeared on the letter.
Donna saw things differently. Dee could dress up Ashley as a ladybug and take her trick-or-treating on Halloween. He could watch her interact with other children at the playground or school. He could easily rise from the couch and get himself a lousy glass of water. He could never fully understand what she was going through, so he could never fully understand her determination to find a cure.
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A trim 34-year-old man with a full head of jet-black hair and a casual manner, Hauser runs Caring Medical and Rehabilitation Services in Oak Park with his wife, Marion, a dietitian. The couple also collaborate on an advice column for the Cairo Citizen, The Doctor and the Dietitian, in which they answer readers’ questions about ailments ranging from “pins and needles” to Lyme disease–and refer to flatulence as “tooting” and cataracts as films of “gooey gunk.” Occasionally they send readers thumbing through the Bible for such things as “God’s prescription for worry and fear.” They sympathize, and occasionally empathize, with the people who write to them. “We know it’s rough having zits,” they assured a distraught 16-year-old. “Boy, do we know–we both have been there.”
