So yeah, medical issues again. At nearly 72, you think I would be used to this by now. Sigh. Time has slowed down in some ways and sped up in others. Mom died at 101 last fall so I might have another 30 years - all our ladies live long so not new news. But waiting for medical tests and appointments slows time to a crawl. Finally got MRI results…
I tend to be an impulsive, unscheduled person. I also have a great work ethic so self-employment is a joy for me. Well, adulthood has arrived – due to my physical (not aging) problems.
If you are like me, you depend on social media for a fair amount of social interaction and eavesdropping. The average social media user has no clue how important this is to the disabled/chronically ill community.
With all the upheaval at Twitter, I’ve been thinking about adding new accounts such as Mastodon so I dug in over the weekend. And oof. It’s not for the faint at heart.
The Myasthenia Gravis has finally just disabled me. I’ve had issues for decades but this last decade has been hard. Now that I know I have MG, I also am aware that I’ve had it for at least 5 years and probably more. So instead of EDS driving my issues, it is obvious that the MG is ascendant.
The last few months have been a slow whirlwind for me - leading me to stop writing for a while. I'm still in early period of diagnosis of the Myasthenia Gravis, a rare neuromuscular autoimmune disease. Since my flare in October, my body has changed dramatically and figuring out what to do next has been a crazy making period for me. At least the diagnosis is confirmed and my neuro is trying to get approval for the next step treatment for me - IVIG. He says it make take 3 months to get it approved so I'm in a waiting pattern for now.
It takes 6 years or more to get a diagnosis for rare conditions. I was 55 before my lifelong symptoms were identified as Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, a genetic malady that causes defective collagen. The interesting part of this is the commonalities I've noted in the rare disease groups. The main one is the journey to diagnosis and how emotionally exhausting and damaging it is. I started researching rare disease alone and found a couple of studies that prove to be apropos.
I have read so many horror tales in the Ehlers Danlos community. I attribute this problem to several factors. We spend so much time seeking diagnosis from multiple specialities. So many of us have medical PTSD - we are so used to not being believed. We are so complicated and rarely present the same as others with EDS since there are so many varieties. We really are zebras! New varieties…