The Silver Lining

July 15-20 Sunday morning.  We were supposed to be headed to the beach for a week.  We’d been planning it for months.  Normally, I would have already had everything packed but I hadn’t had the energy or ability to even collect my thoughts about it. Just as well. I wound up in an ambulance, going back to the hospital in full Myasthenic Crisis.  I remember the paramedic reading up on MG as we rode.  He continually monitored me, spoke soothingly to me.  I squeezed the pump respirator, trying to force enough air into my lungs to breathe.  By the time we arrived at the hospital, I was too exhausted to care much.  I don’t remember much about Sunday once I was taken into the ER.  I vaguely remember a chest x-ray.  David said I was nauseous but I don’t remember throwing up.  He also mentioned that the resident doctor I had been assigned in my previous visit checked on me but I have no recollection of seeing her.  ...

July 1 - 15, 2018 July arrived, gasping for breath.   Actually, that was ME, gasping for breath.   As the next couple of weeks passed, I got weaker and weaker.   Breathing became increasingly difficult.   I couldn’t walk from the bedroom to the den without having to stop halfway and sit down to catch my breath.   Just a few months ago, I was walking 3 miles a day.   How can this all be happening? I felt like I had aged from 61 to 90 in 2 months‘   time.   Eating and swallowing became a problem because I choked easily.   My diaphragm muscles were too weak to cough.   Often David would have to pound my back so I could overcome a choking episode.   Oddly, I discovered that when he’d hit my back, it actually relieved some of the discomfort in my lungs as well.   We joked that it was odd foreplay.   Dark humor, not really funny. Talking also became difficult.   Not only because I couldn’t breathe, but be...