New Ronald Information

Mimi got the autopsy report back on Ronald, Randy's dad. His condition was so unusual that she was asked to submit brain tissue to determine the actual cause of his condition. Apparently he had Prion disease. Wow! Something I had never heard of before...or had I? Apparently "Mad Cow" disease is also a prion disease...no he did not have Mad Cow! They were able to identify that the brain had the proteins, but couldn't identify exactly the type, though the markers indicate that it was Gerstmann-Straussler-Scheinker which is the cousin to the more common one Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease. Those are a mouthful...so I will refer to them as GSS and CJD when I talk about them. Click on the words to find out way too detailed information on each of them. Apparently the main difference in the two is that GSS is very rare and it's hereditary. So needless to say we will be sending Randy to get the tests done and we will be tacking that test on to Grayson's hemachromotosis one as well. Unfortunately at this time GSS is fatal. We are very lucky that Mimi was conscientious enough to have the autopsy done so that we are informed. I find it is much easier to deal with the beast that you can see rather than the one you can't.