I only want the sea and water with lime – this was the message that 35-year-old myasthenia patient Marija Krumiņa regularly conveyed to her family while lying in the intensive care unit. Seven years ago, the young woman went through hell, spending four months in the hospital and fighting for herself with doctors. Her health deteriorated rapidly until the doctors diagnosed her with muscle weakness in simple terms. At the most critical stage of her life, Maria was not able to eat, speak or breathe by herself, but after a difficult and long recovery period, she managed to return to full-time work and still enjoy her favorite season – spring with the smell of lilacs.
Before the fateful day, Maria’s health had never signaled that the situation could change so drastically at one moment. The woman remembers herself as an absolutely healthy person – with slightly impaired vision since childhood, a cut appendix and occasional headaches during periods of heavy exertion. “I studied at the university, I worked two jobs. I was super healthy and active. I went to the doctors because I just needed to check something every now and then – for a tick. There was not the slightest suspicion that something could happen. But it happened. And very suddenly,” says Maria.
Four months between two suns
Maria’s myasthenia gravis story began on an ordinary day with a drooping eyelid. The young woman presented it to her colleagues as a joke, because she herself found it quite amusing: “Hey, I’m 28 years old, I’m spinning my head, everything in life is great, but now I’m going to be ugly. I told you that you shouldn’t laugh at me! But she herself was also funny,” remembers Maria. After two days, the drooping eyelid was still standing as if embalmed. If it’s about the eyelid, you have to go to the eye doctor, Marija concluded in her mind. The doctor “wrote” the incident down to a heavy load, prescribed vitamins and said that he would get better in a few days.
But it only got worse, and very fast. In an effort to reduce the workload, Marija has taken a kind of partial holiday from her work related to the trade sector, planning to curl up on the couch with computer work. It was a Friday, Maria remembers. “I was driving in the morning in the car, I was talking on the loudspeaker with my mother and suddenly I realized that my face was tingling. “Seriously? Quickly call the family doctor,” my mother said. There they told me to run to the hospital. I thought – well, someone will run there, I have a day off. I took the computer and went to “Stradiņi”. I remember only thinking about what it would be like there queues, I won’t know where to go, where to be admitted. I knocked somewhere, and they took me very quickly. Hundreds of tests began to be carried out, which made me think – it’s probably quite serious…” Asked whether at this moment it still seemed that the load was to blame , Maria answers in the negative. Maybe a stroke or a heart attack, she thought. “When I was admitted to the hospital the same day, I realized that it was not a joke at all.”
