You are obviously more educated than I am about medical illnesses and doing the research. That is why I am so thankful my husband has taken over the research, etc. from the beginning. He has taken notes every time we have seen a doctor from the start and we requested all of my information from the hospital after I was released which filled an entire paper box. He and my best friend could both get their PhD's in these subjects they have done so much research and talked about everything under the sun with each other.

One thing that has occurred to me (since my one brain cell has kicked in) is the difference in our timeline with these illnesses. You have been fighting this for ten years while it took me only 12 days to come full circle and end up in the ER. I was healthy on 4/30/09 and the next morning (5/1/09) I woke up with tingling and numbness in my lower right leg. The next morning I couldn't swallow. Several days later I noticed that my eye movement was slow while driving to work - looking from straight ahead to looking at the rearview mirror. By 5/8/09 the numbness and tingling had started on the right side of my head and over the next two days I started having weakness in my legs and trouble with my balance. On 5/12/09 I was in the ER with a host of neurologists trying to figure out what was going on. I believe their first thoughts were MS but a routine Xray of my chest and additional CT scan showed the thymoma. The next day I was told about the tumor and that I was set for surgery on 5/19/09. I have to admit that when they said I had a tumor my brain just shut down. I had never been in the hospital in my life and I was 54 years old.

Looking back the stiffness in my legs started to appear along with the weakness shortly after I was admitted to the hospital. I really can't tell you exactly when because it was all such a new experience. I just know that I couldn't walk without someone helping me almost from that time period.

I am thankful that if I am now cursed with this that it happened at a later time in my life but it's so hard to believe that for all these years I've been so good about doctors checkups and physicals and doctors telling me that I was just so healthy. You never know when that bus is going to pull right out in front of you.

Here I go rambling and I have no excuse other than a common soul who has experienced the same things. Since everyone's eyes glaze over when I tell them what my illness is and try to explain what is happening to my body, you understand even more than I do about the experience.

Best of luck,
Becky
Southern Bell