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Hi, my name is Madison; many call me
Maddie. I am 16 years old and attend Walton Central School
and BOCES in Masonville for Early Childhood in which I carry
a 90 and above grade point average. When I graduate from
high-school I plan on furthering my education to become a
Special Education teacher, with a duel degree in General
Education for grades 1-6. I like fishing, hanging out with
my friends and family. I was a happy go lucky teenager until
February of this year when my voice began to change and
eating and drinking became a challenge because I would
choke, and I was weak, very tired on a daily basis. My mom,
Jessica, is a nurse and knew something was wrong so to the
doctors we went. I went through many tests, some include cat
scans, MRI and blood work. On June 26th, 2015 my world was
turned upside down. On that day I was diagnosed with an
autoimmune disease called Myasthenia Gravis. There is no
cure and it is a life changing disease. Myasthenia Gravis is
a neuromuscular disorder caused by the failure of the
muscles to receive messages transmitted by the nerve
receptors. I'm on many different medications to help perform
daily activities. I have been in and out of the hospital
since my diagnosis where I get IVIG infusions. These
infusions take a course to infusion over 3-5 days, these
treatments take about a week to start working and only last
about a month. This diagnoses was and still continues to be
hard for me to cope with because I have had to miss multiple
days of school for treatment, doctors appointments, tests
and so on. On December 16th, 2015 I went in for a
Thymectomy. A Thymectomy is a surgery where they take out
the patients thymus gland. With conducting this surgery
studies have shown that there is a 50/50 percent chance that
someone will have no symptoms at all(this period called
remission) or the person will have no effect to the surgery.
There is a possibility that I will go into remission, but we
won't be able to tell until 6 months to a year after the
surgery.
 
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