The Key

Some recent events have sparked an idea for a story. I think it will be the first non-fiction story I've truly written. I'm not a fan of non-fiction, not at all...but I think this story is interesting.

So, here is the idea. For generations a family has had some health issues, some have called it the onset of arthritis and some just poor circulation. For some reason, no one has ever linked it to the next generation....that their problems might be the same or even related. In the fifth known generation a child has taken on a harsh and painful version of what the rest of the family line has experienced. The symptoms are a little off and very extreme, but no one links it to what they themselves have. Eight years pass and no doctors can diagnose it. It is too closly linked to three or four diseases without being a single one. She is unique, or so they think. Finally her symptoms abate and slowly she returns to general health. But that is not the end of the story, no, that is where it begins. The child's older sister starts to have symptoms of this disease, though it varies and is an at first mild case. A trip to her normal doctor leads to a referral and a trip to a doctor at a leading hospital only gains another referral but this time to a neurology clilnic. It is there that she is actually diagnosed. She has a rare disease. None of the doctors had seen or even heard of it until her symptoms provoked questions and research.

Erythromyalgia, a rare form of nerve pain caused by a mutation in gene Nav1.7 that produces swelling in the extremities and hot burning pain. Episodes are generally caused by an elevation in body temperature and only slow and mild cooling will help without harming or further provoking the mutation.

It is this diagnosis and the description that then sparks the memories and consciouses of the living generations. A great grandmother, the one the diagnosed was named after, had swelling and hot burning pain in her hands and feet. No longer alive they can not confirm it, but the great grandmother's sister still lives and attests to the memory. Slowly the pieces slide into place and variations of the disease appear in each generation. None had been given a diagnosis before this child. She was the Key to unlocking each family mystery. A dominant mutated gene passed to each generation. The current generation is now faced with the weight of passing such a burden on......

Anyway...heavy as that is, I think it would turn out to be an interesting story once I throw in details of the eight years the younger had to go through before her pain subsided. What think you?