The first "unexplained" collapse

It was a busy period. My sons Bar-Mitzvah was near and there were a lot of preparations. My husband was on a trip abroad which was very important for his academic future. So, after taking a few days off I had to be back in full speed- taking my son to rehearsals after work, going over the list of guests, making sure everything is in order. I was therefore very glad when at noon one of my colleagues suggested taking a break from our busy clinic and going to the staff dining room for lunch.

It was a short distance away and it took us a few minutes to get there, put some food on the tray and sit down to eat.We then headed back, like we did many times before. At first I found it a bit hard to keep up with his pace. (This was something I got used to by now, as it happened to me many times over those last few months). So, I just slowed down and told him to go ahead. But, then it became harder and harder for me to walk and the distance between us grew larger and larger. He looked back puzzled. Are you OK? He asked. Yes, I am fine, I said, unable to understand, why I felt as if I was walking in quick sand. What I knew as a very short distance, now seemed almost impossible to pass.

I finally reached my office. "I will just sit down and rest", I thought to myself, but instead of feeling better, I felt worse. "I need help", I thought, "something is wrong". I tried to walk to the corridor, but then realized my legs couldn't hold me. The head of my department who was standing in the corridor caught me before I fell to the floor. He carried me over to one of the beds,  put an intravenous line in my arm and connected me to iv fluids. A neurologist was consulted. After a brief examination, he didn't think this was explained by being overworked. He thought it was more likely a rare, severe and unusual form of myasthenia. He gave me a pill of mestinon, which worked wonders and saved me from being hospitalized, as he initially planned. He also ordered a bunch of tests and told me to go home and rest until we have the results.

It took a while until those tests were done. Some involved consultations at another hospital. Meanwhile, I was doing reasonably well with the mestinon. My pulmonologist now thought that my "asthma" was due to the same neuromuscular illness because of involvement of the respiratory muscles. Although, to me this sounded quite sensible, the neurologists I consulted dismissed this possibility as by now all the tests they ordered were completely normal. This was the first (and unfortunately not the last) time in which I realized that for neurologists It is very hard to handle what doesn't fit their knowledge and experience.. Although at that time, I had no idea that an illness like mine, which presents in such an unusual way, with normal test results just couldn't exist in their opinion, no matter how severe, disabling or even life threatening it becomes.

At that time I had no idea that I wasn't just a patient undergoing diagnostic tests (which by now took much too long in my opinion) before being given effective treatment. I had no idea that I was in fact being given a nearly impossible role-the role of both an "who" from "whosville" and Horton the elephant. 

In fact, I eventually learned that neurologists have a very convenient way to deal with such intriguing patients. They can attribute all or some of their symptoms to a "functional neurological disorder". http://michalice.blogspot.co.il/2014/10/functional-neurological-disorder.html

But, for now I was just trying to keep on with my personal and professional life, while finding out what this illness was and receive proper treatment. And for the most part of the time I managed to do it, with the mestinon I was given and more frequent periods of rest, until...