Disease That Turns Your Body Into Stone
What is a fate worse than death? I’ll tell you. Watching your body slowly turning into stone.
Your skin and your every muscle being petrified while you cannot do anything about it. Your ribcage fusing, your jaw becoming shut, your body becoming your prison, and your mind slowly falling apart due to the pain and agony of this terrifying condition.
But, let’s rewind.
Once upon a time, there was a woman by the name of Foppy. Foppy was born in a small German village of Steindorf. Her birth was traumatic, both for her mother and the poor doctors who had to save her life. Her body was contorted into an unnatural shape. She looked more like a Chinese letter than a newborn. Her skin full of strange lumps and her big toes malformed.
By some miracle, she lived.
Like any other child, she was full of wondrous curiosity for the world. She liked to climb trees and run across the barren streets of Steindorf with her peers. She also ate rocks sometimes. This life of adventure led to frequent injuries. Unlike other children, every time she would bump her shin on a table that the hateful Universe put in the only wrong spot in the room, a big, hard lump appeared under her skin.
Every time she scratched her skin on a tree branch, her wound was replaced by a hard, stone-like formation. It was unusual, but she thought she must have superpowers. Foppy, of course, was terribly mistaken.
By the time she was a young woman, her joints began to stiffen, and she lost range of motion in her arms and neck. It wasn’t long before doctors realized: bone was forming where it shouldn’t be—between muscles, across joints, and even under the skin.
Almost overnight, she lost the ability to run, climb trees, and do any activities she used to. As years passed, her body deteriorated.
Now, a 45-year-old Foppy lies chained to her bed. Her muscles rigid, her joints fused with the opposing bones, and her skin as hard as a rock. She cannot feed herself, and can barely swallow. The pain is unbearable.
With the last atoms of energy, she manages to grab a knife, but her ossified body prevents her from doing the final act.
Foppy has no ribs. She has one giant piece of bone that surrounds her internal organs, limiting her ability to breathe. Her vocal cords too rigid to produce a sound, she is unable to call for help, and she slowly suffocates before the sunrise.
How could this happen?
Let me explain…
Our protagonist suffered from a medical condition known as Fibrodysplasia Ossificans Progressiva (FOP) or the Stone Man Syndrome.
A genetic condition in which your body replaces damaged tissue with bone. This condition is progressive, meaning the symptoms worsen as we age, and can be divided into three stages:
The first stage begins at birth, with malformed big toes, also known as hallux valgus. This is a symptom that is seen in a plethora of medical conditions, but is almost always present in FOP.
During the early stage, a child may also notice the formation of hard bumps under their skin after minor injuries.
You see, when you normally suffer a physical trauma, your body follows a precise, intelligent process: Firstly, inflammation happens. Blood rushes to the damaged area in order to deliver white blood cells to fight potential invaders like bacteria and viruses, but also fibroblasts and stem cells, which rebuild muscle, skin, or connective tissue, depending on what’s damaged.
In people suffering from FOP, instead of fibroblasts, your body sends osteoblasts, a type of cell that is crucial in bone formation. Unlike what many people think, your bones are live tissue that constantly regenerates itself in order to be as sturdy as possible. Osteoclasts are tasked with breaking down old bone, while osteoblasts serve to form new, hard bone.
Your body mistakes injuries with a need to form new bone tissue.
The second stage is characterized by mobility issues due to the ossification process of the joints, muscles, and ligaments. Ossification meaning turning any tissue into bone tissue.
In order to flex your forearm, for example, you need:
- A bone to support the weight of your forearm
- A muscle to pull that bone in a desired direction
- And a joint to allow the motion of your forearm, without the need to move your entire arm
In the Stone Man Syndrome, bone replaces either muscles or joints, effectively preventing you from performing the flex movement. Due to this process, many patients become wheelchair-bound in their 20s or early 30s.
In the third stage, your jaw becomes locked in place since the joints and muscles that are essential for opening and closing your mouth are replaced by bone, leaving you without the ability to speak or eat.
Your ribcage fuses into one solid mass of bony tissue, just like a Space Marine. Unlike a Space Marine, your ability to breathe becomes severely limited.
Why is that?
Because your lungs can’t inhale and exhale on their own — they rely on the movement of your ribcage: When you inhale, the muscles between your ribs (called intercostal muscles) expand the ribcage outward. This creates a vacuum that pulls air into your lungs. When you exhale, your ribcage contracts, pushing the air out.
If your ribs are fused like a solid bone cage: Your chest can’t expand, and your lungs can’t fill with air, which leads to the most common cause of death in this condition- asphyxiation.
The only question that remains is, is there something you can do?
No...
In Fibrodysplasia Ossificans Progressiva, every time you try to surgically remove excess bone tissue, your body tries to repair it with even more bone tissue. Even biopsies, which were essential in ruling out other conditions like tumors, caused further suffering for the patient.
This is a rare but terrifying condition in which you become a prisoner of your own skeleton.
Thanks for reading.