Pat Knight

If you have taken a minute to come to this page, thank you! Thank you for your care, concern, and prayers. If you know our mom, which I assume you do, you will know that she won't be happy about us making a Caring Bridge. When she is better, we will probably delete it and hope she never finds out. 😉 This is really for our dad and for you. For you, to get updates as we get them. And for him, to be able to focus on Mom instead of responding to all your kind and thoughtful concerns. You see, my mom is a very loved person. There are lots of people who are very concerned for her well being. We feel blessed by all your interest! Please continue to send our dad well wishes and prayers knowing that he appreciates them all; even if he can't respond. Also, feel free to blow up our mom's phone. She will LOVE reading all the messages when she is better.




Now for the history....our mom has suspected for a while that she had developed Myasthenia Gravis. Her mom also developed it at this same age. It is a neurological disease that affects your ability to control your voluntary muscles.  It starts at the top of your head and works it's way down. The good news is there are treatments for MG that will manage the symptoms. Unfortunately, for our mom, her symptoms mimicked other illnesses, so she wasn't getting the appropriate care. That lead to her having a Myasthenia Gravis Crisis, and her respiratory muscles rapidly weakening. Thankfully, she got to the ER and was placed on a ventilator before she completely lost her ability to breath. Like most crisis, this too shall pass (one of my dad's favorite sayings). The goal is to stabilize her airways, get MG meds onboard, and extubate her when the docs are sure she is stable. (All this is presupposing she actually has MG. We won't have official test results back for another week. But, our mom believes she has MG and despite our efforts to prove otherwise, she is almost always right. 😉) She has been in the hospital, intubated, and sedated for 6 days. She has gotten some good rest and completed the MG med regimen. This has not been a cake walk for her. You know how claustrophobic and strong she is. She has woken up many times despite high doses of sedatives. She can get very upset and then starts coughing. Coughing on a vent is painful. We are praying for a complete recovery of her respiratory muscles, and a restful time in ICU while she waits for the MG meds to work. Thank you, again, for your prayers!