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Finding my family tree5/17/2023 ![]() When he returned to Phoenix, where he and his adopted family lived, he had new resolve to find his birth family. (Douglas learned later that he and the pub owner are related.) His health improved during the visit, which he attributes to Ireland’s cool weather. He chose Fethard, because the walled medieval town has a pub called McCarthy’s. In June 2017, Douglas flew to Ireland on what he calls his “death trip.” He wanted to see the land of his McCarthy ancestors. ![]() It was time, he decided, to track down his birth family and learn more about his medical history. “I feel like I have the flu every day,” he says. Headaches are typical of about a third of people with Ehlers-Danlos. For five years, he has had a constant migraine. ![]() His blood vessels don’t constrict properly to maintain his blood pressure, so Douglas sometimes faints when he stands up. “As a kid, I was always dislocating something,” he says. His stretchy skin and hyperflexible joints are characteristic of the disease. Douglas has a genetic disease called Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, caused by a variant in a gene that helps build the body’s connective tissue. “We planned my funeral three times,” he says. ![]() His search gained urgency in the last five years as he battled a life-threatening illness. “I think I must have broken up a lot of marriages,” he laughs. Over the years, Douglas had tried off and on to find his birth family, mostly by looking for his mother’s name, Deborah Ann McCarthy, in phone books and calling the numbers. He knew his birth mother’s name and had seen a birth certificate stating his birth name: Thomas Michael McCarthy. Michael Douglas, a new resident of southern Maryland, credits genetic testing for helping him find his heritage - and a family he knew very little about.ĭouglas, 43, is adopted. ![]()
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