Here I go again: steroid step down

I’ve been back from travelling for around a month now and in that time I have:

• visited Ireland to see the in-laws and explore a part of the country I had never seen before, Galway
• found and moved into a new flat
• set up new flat to make it home
• started a new job
• started a new diet (more on this in a follow up post)

However the most important thing I have done since being back was visit my doctor to get a new prescription and get bloods taken. The results seem to be normal from the information I can get over the phone.

I also let her know that I planned to step down my daily dose of steroids over the coming months and being conscientious, she booked me in for monthly blood tests. This is the first time I’ve had these ordered by a doctor since London and, although it takes time out of the working week, it will be good to track my body’s reaction to the increased steroids over the past three months and how it responds as I step down. Data is everything these days, after all.

Already started

This month, I have got myself down from 10mgs a day to 7mgs and I plan to be down to 5mgs by the start of June. From there, experience tells me it will be a more gradual process. I know the toll this will take on me emotionally from previous experience – you can read about my last step down from the steroids in this blog’s medication archive.

However, to be reliant on as few drugs as possible while not compromising on quality of life has always been my goal for coping with my MG. In this respect, I must treat this step down process as a new test for my body and watch carefully to see how it responds.

A week at altitude

Since my last post about stepping into the unknown of altitude in Bolivia, I have explored the Salar de Uyuni, spent 24 hours in Bolivia’s capital city La Paz and travelled to the former Incan capital of Cuzco – all of which are 3,400m or above. In this post, I have broken down my experience with altitude and myasthenia gravis into a daily diary covering the first seven days.

Day one

Landing at 4,100m in the La Paz airport, the highest international airport in the world, was a shock to the system. We had a day to spend there before our evening flight to Uyuni and considered getting a taxi to the lower city centre (3,660m) to make life a little bit easier. But on arrival, we found a hotel in the airport where you could pay by the hour… at this height, to conserve energy.

Observing my symptoms closely, I noticed that first came a flush to my cheeks and my skin stared tingling. This was followed by a slight tremor of the heart as if it was shaking with uncertainty and then a burst blood vessel in my eye. Next, the delight of an upset stomach. While all this was happening, we were having a Netflix binge while lying sprawled in the hotel room.

After 8 hours at that height, I was feeling rather spaced but nothing else more serious than the symptoms above. I could feel my circulation working a bit slower than normal as my hands and toes were cold and my lips had turned a strange purple shade.

My appetite had disappeared but we had read that you should make yourself eat as your body works harder than normal at altitude. After some chicken salad, I felt a sudden energy boost – a pattern of eating and feeling better that continued for the next few days.

The flight to Uyuni gave us a break due to the normal oxygen levels on planes. Once back on steady land, we were at the slightly lower altitude of 3,600m.

Day two

During a broken but not terrible night’s sleep, I felt my heart working harder than it normally would so I had to lie on my right side. I woke to find my face puffy and my pupils huge. My body was tired but not weak -I was hungry and I woke up with a thirst as if I had been smoking and drinking all night.

We allowed ourselves to have a day of rest to acclimitatise. This meant barely leaving the hotel and walking everywhere very slowly. After breakfast I felt better although my lips were still purple tinged.

While we lounged about the hotel reading, the fires were roaring but I couldn’t get warm. Putting on all the extra layers I had didn’t really help as it felt like it was coldness coming from the inside out. The hotel had a sauna and jacuzzi but I didn’t want to risk the extra pressure of heat on my body, so I had regular hot chocolates (caffeine and alcohol were advised against).

By 9pm I couldn’t keep my eyes open and passed into a coma-like sleep.

Day three

I slept like a log and woke up feeling nearly normal although my face was still a bit puffy and my lips still had a purple tinge.

After another relaxed morning and a FaceTime with some friends (which would have tired us out the day before), we went for a tour into the Salar De Uyuni.

Walking very slowly between the stalls in Colchani, between the Dakar monument to the salt hotel and then posing for lots of silly photos (see below) tired me out, but it was totally worth it. I found myself slightly breathless after doing a yoga pose, but thankfully I was able to catch my breath quickly.

We spent the last hour and a half having a picnic watching the sunset and taking our first taste of alcohol since arriving in altitude. My body told me clearly ‘don’t overdo it’ so I kept it to a small glass simply to enjoy with the best sunset I have ever witnessed.

Day four

After another good night’s sleep – deep and restful but with some crazy dreams in the morning – we flew back to La Paz.

Instantly on arriving back at 4,100m I felt the thinner air and the pollution speed up my breathing and heart rate. As we slowly descended with the taxi into the incredible city, which is in a valley surrounded by the huge mountains of the Andes, I felt myself relax.

For the first time since arriving in altitude, we did lots of walking (close to 14,000 steps) and because of how the city is laid out, we had to walk up a lot of hills. However we took our time and didn’t have any problems.

Saying that, I got a headache and my ears were popping like crazy when we took the teleferico back up over 4,000m but we didn’t hang about long at the top. That sudden headache reminded me how much difference 500m can make.

Day five

We flew to Cuzco, Peru, which is at the slightly lower altitude of 3,300m. I expected to find it easier to breathe right away after being back at 4,100m in La Paz airport. My breathing felt smoother inside the airport although the pollution of the city was quite bad. After a rubbish night sleep in La Paz due to a dusty, creaky room and probably eating too much too late, I felt a bit ropey and after eating my first meal in Cuzco felt thoroughly poisoned.

That meant being unable to do anything after 6.30pm so the first night in Peru was wasted and I was up with an upset stomach through the night.

Day six

After another rubbish sleep, I was awake early and did what I probably shouldn’t have – caffeinated the problem away. This gave me a false sense of energy and the tiredness at altitude felt like a distant memory.

We spent the morning and early afternoon organising activities for the rest of our time and then visiting some of the city’s attractions. Unlike anywhere else we’ve been in South America, except Ipanema Beach in Rio, the people of Cuzco relentlessly try to sell tourists stuff. Once we politely said no to our 14th massage, 20th restaurant, 37th hat and 42nd selfie stick, we were drained and found a quiet bar for respite. The peace of the bar was so nice that we couldn’t resist a second drink and then having tapas for dinner would have been a crime without a glass of wine.

So basically Cuzco was where my caffeine and alcohol consumption went back to normal. You’re really encouraged not to drink at altitude – because it’s a depressant and because you’re already dehydrated. So after initially passing out, I woke up with a racing heart in the middle of the night.

Day seven

When the alarm went off at 6am for our first trip out of Cuzco I had slept on and off but didn’t feel rested. Thanks alcohol!

As a result, by the time we got to our first stop – a lake in the town of Chincerro at 3,700m I was out of breath and felt very weak. The stairs to the first Incan settlement in the same town were a real struggle. Each one feeling like a mountain – similar to how I feel on really bad fatigue days.

As we moved down into the Sacred Valley, things got easier – although climbing the stairs at Ollantaytambo was still a challenge that required a pause halfway. By the end of a full day in Pisaq, a settlement around 3,500m, I felt thoroughly exhausted and was not looking forward to the 4am alarm clock for Machu Picchu the next morning.

In reality, the wake up was tough but our eighth day was much easier as Machu Picchu is around 2,500m above sea level. As a result, I was able to bound around the mysterious ruins, while other people were walking around grey-faced, looking as if they could be sick at any time.

This feeling of having all the energy in the world is common when you come down from altitude and so I’m looking forward to how amazing I will feel when we reach Lima, the final stop of our trip.

In summary

We have now managed to spend 10 days at altitude without any real problems and without having to take any special medications.

I have managed a tough yoga class, a lot of walking and have climbed thousands of Incan-built stairs.

I think the following made my first extended period at altitude easier:

• taking the time to acclimatise properly by having two full days of relaxation
• not drinking alcohol or caffeine for the first three days
• eating light meals
• allowing ourselves to go to bed early and not overdoing it

Now that I have seen how my body reacts to altitude, I would be less nervous about going above 3,000m again. Saying that, I won’t take it for granted and will definitely take the same precautions and have a back-up plan in case I react differently next time as altitude, like myasthenia gravis, is unpredictable.

Altitude and myasthenia gravis

Today I’m stepping into the unknown. Not only am I flying from Chile – the most developed of the countries I’ve visited in South America so far (in my opinion) – to Bolivia – a country I know very little about and that has been described to me as the least European of all the countries in the continent. Now that’s an exciting thing in itself and the kind of description that sells a place to me rather than puts me off. But also the airport in La Paz, Bolivia’s capital, is 4,000m above sea level. We have eight hours here until our flight to the slightly lower Uyuni (3,600m).

General impact of altitude

It is widely acknowledged that the impacts of altitude start when a person passes around 3,000m – although some people start to feel it around 2,500m. This is because the air is thinner – it contains less oxygen. The higher you go the less oxygen it contains.

There is no predicting how and when it will impact a person but some common side effects are:

• headaches
• nauseous and/or upset stomach
• vomiting
• shortness of breath
• trouble sleeping
• tiredness

From what I’ve read it can take about three days or longer to acclimatise to the thinner oxygen.

Implications for myasthenia gravis

When I asked my consultant before taking the trip he told me there was no specific implications but I was to take care just as anyone else would.

Obviously the difficulty sleeping could trigger MG symptoms as it has done in the past for me, so it will be interesting to see how my eyes behave over the next few days. As you can see from the featured photo, I’m arriving strong with no physical eye symptoms.

However, from what I’ve read and I must remind you that I’m as far from a medical expert as humans come, that it might be particularly problematic if you’ve had lung problems or if you have an additional lung problem on top of your MG.

Experimenting by giving it a go

After a last minute panic at the airport and then on the flight, we are here in La Paz doing everything, including writing this blog, incredibly slowly. The only way to know how we’ll respond to this altitude thing is to be in it so armed with the names of drugs we can take to alleviate symptoms, we’re giving it a go.

We’re going to take it very easy – relaxing for the first few days until we acclimatise and then see what we’re fit for. We’ve got a nice hotel so that we can just relax and enjoy being in the desert; another new experience for me.

If things don’t go well, our plan is to skip the Salar de Uyuni and fly to Lima, the sea level capital of Peru, where we can take a meandering bus to Cuzco. This means a more gradual acclimatisation to the slightly lower Peruvian city (3,300m), from where we plan to spend a week exploring Incan history including Machu Picchu.

I will give an update on how we’ve found it in due course, but for now we’re off to enjoy the relaxation booths with Netflix that an absolute hero created in the La Paz airport.

Going to hospital in Buenos Aires

After a frustrating discussion with travel insurance as I wrote about in the previous blog, I went to a Buenos Aires’ hospital to get help for my increased myasthenia symptoms.

As you can imagine, going to a hospital in a country where you only speak ‘un pocito’ of the language was frightening. I don’t think I’ve ever had such rapid deterioration and I had no idea of how to explain this or even if they would know of the condition.

Luckily, we found a private hospital where they had staff who could speak English. We went to the emergency waiting room thinking we should follow the same process as at home, but we were quickly redirected to the neurology clinic. The receptionists, although baffled by our ‘Spanglish’, were quickly able to establish that I needed a translator. Because it was so late in the day after all the messing around with the travel insurance, the translator had left however one of the staff members spoke enough English to help us.

Less than an hour after arriving, I was sitting in front of an empathetic neurologist who was telling me to relax and that I was in safe hands. My condition was explored and my symptoms documented – then the normal tests of muscle strength were carried out for the whole body (holding legs up, pressing up with arms, scrunching up facial muscles etc etc). The checks were more thorough than any I’ve had at home.

Having established that the flare up was only affecting my vision in terms of muscle strength, I was taken for blood and urine tests. The final tests were from a lung doctor to test if my breathing had been impacted. That was an interesting experience and not one I have had before – blowing as hard as you can into a piece of equipment like a breathalyser is bloody difficult. It gave me a lot of sympathy for anyone with asthma as apparently they have to do these tests regularly.

Finally I was asked to go back to speak to the neurologist. She was able to tell me within two hours of doing them that I didn’t have an infection and then we worked out a plan for my treatment.

The doctor prescribed me to increase my steroids to 10mg a day and two mestinons a day. If this had been in Scotland, I would have been disappointed to be jumping back up on the steroids. But when I was handed the prescription, I felt such a relief that I could have cried. I probably would have if I wasn’t so exhausted – by this point I could hardly keep my eyes open. And that night, for the first time in almost a week, I slept right through and woke up feeling a hundred times better.

I returned to the hospital for check ups after this and was given the same level of excellent care and support. Not only that but when I left, I was told if I needed anything to get back in touch and given the names of neurologists in the next place I was going.

While I know I was lucky to be near a capital city like Buenos Aires when this happened, I was very impressed by both the standard of care and the cost of the treatments. It may have been my travel nightmare up until the hospital, but as soon as I was in that neurologist’s consultation room I felt in safe hands.

The picture for this blog was taken outside Manzana de las Luces in Buenos Aires where I did a tango class a few days after the increased meds kicked in. Since those few days at the hospital, it’s been back to having fun and trying new things!

Myasthenia and using travel insurance

As I mentioned in my last blog, I had a relapse of double vision when in Uruguay in February. Before jumping to the treatment I received in Argentina, I want to talk about the experience I had with the travel insurance provider.

Ever since being diagnosed with myasthenia gravis, I have been particularly careful when choosing a travel insurance policy. I felt it was inevitable that one day I would need to use it and that time finally came in Buenos Aires last week.

Before calling the insurance company, I used the online doctor service that was included. It was literally a video chat with a British doctor who confirmed I should go to a medical facility to see a neurology specialist ASAP. So I phoned my travel insurance with her recommendation to check if there were any facilities that they would recommend, stressing that it was important for me that they could cater for English-speaking patients.

I hoped that it would be a quick call to the travel insurance just to get a recommendation, but I spent the next three hours having an on and off conversation with one of their staff.

After a long initial conversation about my condition and what the doctor had recommended, the assistant went away and then emailed me over an hour later with a list of rheumatologists in the city although I had told him that the doctor had recommended a neurologist. In the email, he also said I needed to phone each of them to see if they had English-speaking doctors.

When I phoned him back to tell him no I needed an English speaking neurologist, he told me I should consider seeing a rheumatologist instead…as if he had had a brainwave about treating the whole condition. Only after I was quite firm with him, did he eventually agree to look at neurologists. He then again emailed a google search of neurologists without any information about whether they spoke English but also said I should think about his rheumatologist point. Never in my years of having the condition, have I ever had a rheumatologist recommended and, from a quick check on the MG Facebook support groups, it’s incredibly rare that someone would see this type of specialist if they only have MG.

All the time we were having this back and forth ‘discussion’, I was in my darkened hotel room feeling my energy levels – which were at this point already very low – dropping. But there was no sense of any concern whatsoever from the insurance company assistant.

When we were on the way to the hospital I had found with English speaking doctors and staff, he called again to say that unless I had declared the condition I wouldn’t get any treatment paid for. Hardly the right time to bring this detail up! Of course I had declared it and paid the excess, which earlier I assumed he had seen on my file rather than adding stress to an already unpleasant situation after three hours of terrible service.

All in all, it was an utterly frustrating experience that seemed to lack in any kind of empathy. I know most people will not be shocked by this, but I do wonder why we allow an industry that is meant to be providing us a specific service to be so inept when we are at our most vulnerable? There is definitely a business opportunity for a kinder travel insurance company, or even a customer service team who ask callers once how they are doing.

I have now submitted my claim, so I look forward to seeing how that goes but I’ll be doing a bit more research about other providers the next time I take a trip.

A bad week in Uruguay

After five days in breathtaking Rio De Janiero and a couple of days on both the Brazilian and Argentinian sides of the Igazu Falls, we had a night in Buenos Aires before heading to Uruguay for carnival.

To get to Montevideo, Uruguay’s capital, we had to take an overnight bus from Puerta Igazu to Buenos Aires and then an early morning boat to Montevideo the next day. It was exhausting and I think the combination of the extreme heat, the lack of sleep and the different climates led to what happened next.

On day 1 in Montevideo, I had the start of double vision and felt pretty unwell. This developed rapidly over the next few days to the worst double vision I’ve had in years, a nasty headache from the swirling and really bad fatigue. Elaine said I was getting less and less like myself each day and the hours where I was fit to do anything kept getting shorter.

Still, we tried to enjoy the cool carnival nights in Montevideo.

This photo above is on our first night in Montevideo. It was the night of the main parade and here we’re climbing scaffolding to get a better view.

After five nights in Montevideo, we moved on to Colonia Del Sacramento, a former colonial town across the river Del Plata from Buenos Aires. Luckily, there is not much to do in Colonia, so I was able to relax there as I didn’t have much energy for anything else.

After a week of getting worse each day, although I had doubled my steroids, we caught the boat back to Buenos Aires a day earlier than planned to get some help.

I’ve now had medical care in a private facility in Argentina’s capital (more about that in another blog soon) and after upping my steroids and pyridostigmine I am feeling much better. However, this Uruguayan episode served to remind me that the MG is more of a sleeping beast than a distant memory and that I can’t take a day of being well for granted.

The photo for this blog is at the lowest point of my last episode where I wanted to hide away from the world. Thankfully in that moment, I had Elaine to keep my spirits up and pull me out of my self pity. So it has served to remind me how lucky I am to have her by my side too.

Despite this bad turn, the reason we are here – to experience other countries and cultures – is what kept me going. Here are a few of the amazing things we experienced in Montevideo and Colonia Del Sacramento. I hope the beauty of the country and its people is what I remember when I think back on our time there.

Travel vaccines and myasthenia

There were a lot of expenses for our extended honeymoon before we left home and now that we’re ‘here’, I’m not sure how many of them were necessary. The most important and least pleasurable pre-travel expense was the money for injections.

I spent around £500 on injections over a period of 5 weeks and felt like a pin cushion. While I don’t grudge money spent in order to keep myself healthy, it was difficult to hear that because of suppressing my immune system it’s not guaranteed that any of the 11 injections will work. Goodbye £500.

Still, like a reasonable non-stingy (cough cough Scottish) adult, I figured it’s better to have them than to leave myself open to a range of exotic diseases – most of which the pharmacist explained in far too much detail. He was who you should talk to if you never want to adventure beyond your bedroom. 

Side effects 

I was mostly fine after the injections excluding some heavy arms and the first three injection day where I felt nauseous and lightheaded. On other days I was able to go for a light run or swim on the same day as the vaccines. 

No can do

A vaccine that is recommended for the areas we’re travelling to and that I couldn’t get was yellow fever. As it’s a live vaccine, I wasn’t allowed to have it due to my thymectomy and immunosuppression – there’s a risk I’ll get the disease from the vaccine.

The mosquito-carried disease doesn’t have a presence in Nepal or south east Asia so I’m safe for now, but it has a grip on certain parts of South America including the Amazon rainforest. While I don’t need it for this stretch of the trip, I need to carefully pick where I travel to in SA. This unfortunately means minimising my time in Brazil. 

Instead of the vaccine, I got a yellow exemption card (pictured) which will hopefully allow me into the infected countries if not the infected regions. 

So while it was a ‘pain’ to spend so much on vaccines which aren’t guaranteed to work, as I travel to my next destination it brings me peace of mind to know I’ve done all I can.

Down to zero

After 4 years of MG symptoms and 3 and a half years of the diagnosis, I’ve been given the go-ahead by my consultant to reduce my medication to zero. Nothing, nada, zilch.

Earlier this week, I gave my consultant an update on how I’d got on with going from 100mg to 25mg aziathioprine. The short version is that I don’t feel any different now – there was a time when I wasn’t sure between 75mg and 50mg as my symptoms were worse than they’ve been in a while. But I waited it out realising that a month between stepping down doses wasn’t long enough so I’ve been waiting 2-3 months between reducing my dose.

Now comes the real test – my next step is down to zero then down to 1mg of steroids every second day then nothing. So totally drug free. 2017 will be the year I tested going drug free.

This is what I’ve been wanting for years, what I’ve been working towards, but this week I’ve felt a little numb to it. I’ve not been sure how to feel about it so I’ve put off thinking about it knowing that I’m away this weekend. In the middle of nowhere, with lots of time to think. But now I’m here and I’m still struggling to feel it. 

Thinking about it, it’s probably because now comes the scariest part. The ultimate test of whether the thymectomy and healthy lifestyle (early nights, good diet and lots of exercise but not too much) will allow me to stay in remission. Proper remission. 

I’ve been told it’s fine to take 1mg if I’m feeling weak, which is a good back up. But when I finish my latest prescription in a few days time, it will be time to step into the unknown. Wish me luck!  

3 years of myasthenia gravis

This month marks my 3 year anniversary of myasthenia gravis diagnosis. I realised this today with a bit of a shock and found myself asking how 3 years could feel so long and short at the same time?!

Where I was 3 years ago

September 2013 – I had had an incident in March where my right eye had gone squint over night. After lots of tests at Moorfield Eye Hospital, I was given the all clear and 2 weeks later the eye was back to normal. I let out a sigh of relief and put it out if my mind for fear that thinking about it might make my eye go squint again. But in September the double vision brought on by the squint eye crept back and as I sat at work not knowing which screen was the real one, I knew I had to get back to the hospital. Panic struck – once could be bad luck but twice was a pattern. 

I was told that I had suspected myasthenia gravis and a diagnosis had been sent to my old address in April. 6 months of knowing about the condition without treatment felt unfair and as the symptoms progressed over the coming months I got angry about it.

 As I’m sure many of you can relate to, hearing you have myasthenia gravis for the first time is upsetting and terrifying. What is it? What does it mean for me? Googling it didn’t make me feel any better – in fact I started to panic that life as I knew it was about to rapidly change. And it did.

Before I received my first appointment with my consultant and therefore received treatment, my vision was almost permanently double, I started to have difficulties with speech, I struggled swallowing and couldn’t really eat around people due to awkwardness of it all.

For a long time after September 2013,  I was in a difficult place both mentally and physically.

Between Sept 2013 and Sept 2016

I’ve had:

1 thymectomy- an operation to remove the thymus gland

2 specialist consultants 

3 jobs

4 different kinds of medication

The pleasure of attending 5 Myaware meetups

and…

I’ve written more than 365 blogs about living with the condition. 

September 2016

3 years on and I often forget I have MG. After seeing my new Edinburgh-based consultant, I’ve cut out 1 drug and, as I’m doing well, I should be gradually reducing another shortly.  I’m in drug induced remission according to the doctor and we’re testing whether that will hold as I take the drugs away…a bit like a game of Jenga.

Since my move back to Scotland, my quality of life is superb which in turn has helped my symptoms stabilise and reduce. My work-life balance is…balanced and the stress I feel in Edinburgh, compared to London, is minimal. I now get the occasional ptosis (eyelid droop) and I get exhausted still if I over exert/indulge myself, but that’s about it. Both of those things aren’t too hard to live with when I look back to the alternative experience 3 years ago.

On the over indulgence point, I’m currently taking a month off from alcohol mainly to rest my liver after a rather boozy summer. But I’m also keeping a close eye on how my energy levels are without alcohol in my life as I’m not averse to cutting it out for good.

I’ve felt strong enough recently to try a host of outdoors sports: kayaking, paddle boarding and Munro (Scottish mountains over 3,000ft) climbing (as pictured with my friend Steph). Each of these adventures were challenging but I managed without any MG-related difficulties. This is on top of 3 fitness sessions a week.

And most importantly, I’m writing almost every day. Whether anything will ever come of it or not, I’m really enjoying the discipline and the creative outlet that it gives me. Having the mental space and quiet to do that is something I couldn’t of dreamed of 3 years ago.

3 years is a long and short time 

While much has changed over the last 3 years I know that in another 3 years time, everything will likely be different again. I might have had a crisis (where your muscles stop working properly) but I might also have trekked to Everest base camp, I might have had to give up working full time or I might be running a team. That’s the problem with MG – it fluctuates so all I can do is try to keep myself strong, follow the doctors orders and, most importantly, listen to my body.

Myasthenia and post-thymectomy blues

A conversation I had over the last few days about the feelings you have after an operation got me thinking about my thymectomy. While there are a range of emotions you go through, my thoughts were focused on the disappointment you feel if it isn’t an instant success. I thought I’d blog about that nearly two years after my operation.

You go into hospital with high hopes when having a thymectomy –  you read that’s there a 30% chance it’ll make your MG vanish. You try to remember that’s still 70% of people who continue to live with it, but your mind says ‘be positive’. You think your consultant and surgeon have pushed this on you for a reason, right? I mean, it was practically from your first MG appointment that you were encouraged to have a thymectomy. 

Then, as happens for the majority, you have the operation and your symptoms are still there. In fact they may flare up because of the stress your body’s under post- operation. It’s spoken about or assumed by the medical team that you’re not one of the 30%. The good teams will tell you that it takes time for many people to feel the full impact of the thymectomy. Your loved ones will either be too polite to say anything or they’ll be straight up with you – they’ll remind you that hope isn’t gone. But once you’re strong enough to want more than basic comfort, you’ll begin to feel the loss of something you only ever had a slim chance of getting. An easy cure. That’s when you might hit a wall.

That wall will look different depending on the way your mind works and how you react to the thymectomy – for me, it looked like a mountain blocking my path. That I couldn’t hope to climb. Instead I sat down and looked up at the mountain – studied its sharp crags, the rain lashing down around it, the mist lingering at its peak, the broken path leading up at an angle I could hardly fathom. I sat still in the silence of the mountain’s valley and asked myself ‘why did I bother trying’. How deluded was I to think I’d be one of the ‘special ones’. 

As I sat stewing in that anger and frustration, I missed the initial changes.

I barely recognised the stable state I found myself in. Months past and all I had was ptosis and a bit of fatigue. No sign of double vision, slurred speech, difficulties swallowing or weak limbs. I woke from my silent trance to see that the mountain had transformed into a jagged cliff edge with gentle clouds over head and a calm sea lapping away. It was much more manageable now – everything was. While I went for little strolls, I didn’t stray too far. I was scared to try the path just yet for fear that it would shape shift before my eyes back into the terrifying rock face. Or that a surprise landslide would throw me into the sea and my legs would seize up. I didn’t believe the change was real or would last.

The symptoms stayed consistent and I found I was able to challenge myself more with work, with the blog and fitness. I began to feel stronger than I had for years – the only thing that remained of my MG was the fatigue when I overdid it and the ptosis. By the time it came to the year anniversary, I looked to the spot where the mountain had turned into a cliff and saw a rolling hill. The sun was peaking through the clouds now and illuminating a meandering path. This made me smile from my heart outwards and for the first time I considered that the mountain might not come back at all if I was careful. I went for further strolls now – roaming, seeking, testing myself. 

It’ll be two years in September since I had my thymectomy and when I find myself in that valley now, I see only that. A peaceful valley with mountains and cliffs and hills in the backdrop. I walk around safe in knowledge that I won’t fall or find myself scrambling on my hands and knees (unless I choose to).

 When I think about the first few months after the operation, I realise that the dark feelings I had are still there deep down. Like I’ve stored them away so I always remember. But I can look at them from a safe distance and know that accepting them and waiting for them to pass was the best thing I could have done. They probably won’t ever leave me because they were part of the journey of acceptance and because I think of them every time I see my ever fading scar. 

The majority of us won’t have that thymectomy miracle and while it’s good to be hopeful, it’s not the end of the story if it doesn’t happen. Even if it might feel that way at the time. 

Be patient, listen to your body and your mind, embrace what you’re feeling rather than trying to shut it out and pay close attention to the little changes. You might find yourself in that valley with me someday.