I am really scared about having a thymectomy. General anesthesia freaks me out and with my new respiratory history and MG complicating things, it makes it all even potentially worse. And I am dreading the hospital: I have been in the hospital 15 days already in the last couple of months and it will be another 5-6 days with the transsternal approach that they are doing. And then 4-6 wks recovery. This has been the hardest, most exhausting year of my life. And right now I am feeling good with the IVIG so I have to go backwards to only potentially go forwards. . .

I feel like I am between a rock and a hard place. My MG is very severe so I am having IVIG every 3 weeks which is something that cannot continue indefinitely and so thymectomy seems to be the only hope. This just really sucks. Or is it that I am somehow not seeing it in the right light?

My family is not particularly thrilled with the one-third remission rates but that seems better than the "do nothing" rates. Is there another way to go about or understand this?

I think I need a pep talk, debra