....my nightmare started. May 9, 2018, I felt a strange "shift" inside.  May 11, I began experiencing double vision.  A few weeks later, I could no longer hold my head up.  My health quickly degenerated and my breathing was affected.  I couldn't walk from one room to another in my house without having to stop, sit down, catch my breath, and rest.  My speech slurred, I choked easily and had difficulty swallowing.
At the end of June, I made my very first ride in the business end of an ambulance because I couldn't breathe, and I stayed a couple of nights in the hospital.
By the end of July, I made two more ambulance trips to the hospital.  I spent a week in the hospital, enduring multiple tests, trying to breathe, trying to understand what was happening to me.  
I came home with a diagnosis of  #MyastheniaGravis, MuSK positive.  I was home two nights when I made the third trip to the hospital -- I nearly choked to death on a sip of water.  My husband literally saved my life that night.
I felt so depressed, so hopeless, so stunned by the whole thing.  
A few weeks earlier, I was walking 5 miles a day.  Life was going great.  
I came home from the hospital, tethered to an oxygen tank, using a wheelchair or a cane, taking a ton of medications that had strange side effects.  It's a long, tough year.  I've cried buckets of tears, I've screamed at God, I've endured needle pokes, tests, more frustrations than I ever have.
And yet -- I'm still here.  I am much better.  I am thankful for being able to drive some, to smile, to thread a needle, to eat a normal meal without choking, to take a short walk.  I'm thankful for my husband who is a wonderful caregiver, and my PCP, Neurologist, Pulmonologist, the nurses, and the therapists -- all of whom play an important part in my health care.  My support system of good friends and family members is a special blessing.
It still isn't an easy adjustment, but I am beginning to settle into my "new normal."  I know there will be tough days ahead, but there will also be good days as well.
I just take things one day at a time -- sometimes one hour, or even one minute at a time.  
I know this has run long; if you've stuck it out with me this far, I really appreciate your time.  :)  
Tomorrow is another day....
#learningtoliveagain #Learningtolovemyself #ChronicIllness #muskmg #MyastheniaGravis