New York, RSD run/walk, Aug. 6 - Central Park

District animal control officer to get rolling in fund-raiser for RSD research
By Pamela McLoughlin, Register Staff

Rettig, who now spends most of her days in a living room chair, except when she is moved by wheelchair, was stopped in her tracks in January by reflex sympathetic dystrophy, a nerve disorder that can appear after an injury.

But to help bring awareness to the condition and raise money for research through pledges, Rettig will be in New York City's Central Park Aug. 6 as part of a fund-raising run/walk for the Reflex Sympathethic Dystrophy Syndrome Association of America, which is headquartered in Milford. The RSD team will participate in the Achilles Hope and Possibility 5 mile run/walk, which is also raising money for other causes.

Rettig will do a 2-mile walk in a wheelchair, pushed by her dedicated partner of 30 years, Christine Santoro, a retired West Haven teacher.

"You don't think of a rare disease needing research until you have it," Rettig said. "This can happen to anybody. At any point, our life can take a change."

Though her condition really hasn't improved since January, Rettig hopes to return to work at the district shelter someday because she misses rescuing and caring for animals. Sometimes she visits the shelter to see her four-legged friends, but mostly these days she gets her animal fix on the Internet, looking at pictures of dogs for hours at a time on Petfinder.

"I sit here all day, thinking about animals," said Rettig, who still yearns to catch animals, clean them up and find them homes. Through the years, first in West Haven, Rettig became known among animal lovers for the extraordinary lengths she'd go to help animals any time of the day or night.

Rettig also has been an advocate for needy people, including collecting supplies for the homeless.

Rettig now pours some of that same energy into raising awareness of RSD. She wants to show support for the RSD Association because the organization's executive director, Jim Broatch, has been a wealth of help and information about it.

"I'm looking forward to the walk," said Rettig. "My motivation is also to help others who are suffering."

Since she can't go out to seek walk pledges, Rettig said anyone who would like to pledge on her behalf can send money or checks written to the association.

Rettig's RSD stems from a broken leg in January 2005, when she slid on ice at the shelter. Her right leg and foot are affected, and it has jumped to her wrist - a wrist she broke last week when she was trying to walk with crutches and fell because her bad leg gave out. There is no cure for RSD, only pain management, the disease was redefined by the medical community in 1990 as Complex Regional Pain Syndrome, although the term RSD is still commonly used. The pain is so extreme that most drugs - even oxycontin and morphine - barely take the edge off. The best hope is for remission, which can take years if it happens at all.

RSD causes burning pain disproportionate to the injury and makes the area so sensitive to the touch that even a sheet or pant leg can cause agony. Rettig, who wears a special boot over her affected leg, can't sit through a loud movie because vibrations cause pain. She said her leg feels "as if someone put gas on it and lit a match."

Rettig notes, however, that there are RSD sufferers far worse off than she. Some people have it in numerous limbs or full-body RSD. "I'm still optimistic that I'm going to get better," she said.

Broatch has said that while the medical community classifies the syndrome as "rare," meaning fewer than 200,000 cases exist, his organization believes more than 1 million people in the United States have it and have not been diagnosed.