I have been an MGer since the mid-1980s.

At the time, I was a U.S. Army officer, and having myasthenia gravis ended my military career. I learned to live with MG and have been living a full, busy life despite it. Recently, I moved from Florida to West Virginia after the loss of my spouse due to COVID. When I moved here, I joined an online dating site and met someone who had also moved to my area and – as can happen – we developed an interest in each other. After we started communicating with each other, we were shocked to discover that we BOTH were MGers! Neither of us knew about the other’s MG until it came up in a phone conversation.

Our MG stories aren’t exactly the same, but they have similarities.

We both developed MG while in the military (Kathryn was in the Air Force, and no, we were never in the same area, so the MG onset could not have been from that). While both our MG symptoms are generalized, hers affects her eyesight while mine does not; we really do fit the MG snowflake personification. 

We have recently gotten married. The beauty of us both having MG is that we can monitor each other’s condition, and we can truly understand what the other is going through. As rare as MG is, we can’t help but think that we are probably a rarity inside a rarity – a couple who didn’t know we both had MG when we met but have gone on to share our MG journeys together. 

By Matthew Ruley