Hello everyone!

Hope everyone is feeling strong. I wanted to post a little bit about my weekend. Yesterday my husband and I drove to Glasgow for the MGA conference. I've never "met" anyone with MG (although I feel like I know loads of you through your posts). Interestingly the majority of the people there were, ummmm (how to put this delicately) ... of the older persuasion. Since I knew a lot of women were diagnosed in their mid 20s I thought there would be a lot of young women but there were only 3 of us (each dragging along our husbands/partners). Everyone was really nice though.

There were two speakers, Dr Maria Farrugia and Dr Angela Vincent. They were both good. They spoke about the way MG works and the treatments available. They were interesting, but I already knew the majority of what they said (and I'm pretty sure the majority of the people there - moatly people with MG - did too). They showed a lot of the same type of diagrams that I think most of us were presented with when diagnosed ( you know, "this is the nerve, this is the muscle, thisis the gap between them, etc etc). I know Dr Maria Farrugia is doing research right now contrasting thymectomies and medical treatment and Dr Vincent works at Oxford which is a huge research facility so it would have been neat to hear some "new stuff".

The lunch was excellent - a huge hot and cold buffet. Then there were 4 sessions to choose from. I did an aromatherapy session and a Q and A with Dr Farrugia. The other sessions were about benefits (I'm not able to claim any as an immigrant) and a mediated chat session to get to know what works for others. overall a very interesting day and there was a big turn out (easily 150 people from all over Scotland).

The head of the Myasthenia Gravis Association, Alasdair Nimmo spoke about the work the MGA is doing currently as well. That was really interesting and he distributed a fantastic DVD the association had made that explains MG and shows real patients suffering (and they look "normal" which is nice). It showed the huge age range as well (I was in tears when there was a little boy trying to climb upstairs - i could just FEEL the frustration). I'm thinking I might try to host a fundraiser to support the MGA in my community but it'll take some work so maybe I'll wait until after the summer (school is a bit hectic at the minute).

It was a really great day and I look forward to going to more MGA events. I hope I haven't rambled on tooo much. I thought some of you might want to hear about what is going on in Scotand.
Take care,
Kathy