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Myasthenia gravis causes varying degrees of weakness in the voluntary muscles. Date published: 10/30/2006
By KEITH EPPS Lee Broughton had just finished a telephone conversation Sept. 29 when she walked to the refrigerator to get some lunch. Seconds after closing the refrigerator door, Broughton said she felt "lifelessness" from her knees down. She crumpled to the kitchen floor and remained there for four hours until her husband, William Broughton, got home from work. "I wasn't in any pain and I had my wits about me," said Broughton, a former Spotsylvania School Board member. "I just couldn't move my legs and I couldn't get to a phone." The subsequent eight-day stay in a Bethesda, Md., hospital confirmed that an illness Broughton had been diagnosed with more than four years earlier--myasthenia gravis--had taken a sudden turn for the worse. According to the National Institute of Neurological Disorders, myasthenia gravis is a chronic autoimmune neuromuscular disease that features varying degrees of weakness in the voluntary muscles of the body. It can affect anybody at any age, and researchers aren't sure what causes it. It can be controlled by medication and other methods, and Broughton and most others with the disease can expect to live generally normal lives, something that wasn't the case 25 or so years ago. The well-known Broughton was a member of the School Board for nearly 15 years until May, when she surprised her fellow board members and others by resigning. She never publicly explained her reasons for stepping down, but she said the myasthenia gravis played no part in the decision. "I simply decided that it was time for me to step down, and I did," Broughton said. "There was nothing mysterious about it. I enjoyed my time on the board, but it was time to move on." Broughton said she first learned of the disease after one of her eyes got "real big and wide open" for no apparent reason. She went to the doctor and was diagnosed with a very mild case of the disease and was put on medication. Broughton eventually stopped driving after noticing a decline in her peripheral vision. But overall, she said she felt almost no effects until the Sept. 29 incident. In fact, Broughton said, she'd gone to a routine doctor's appointment the day before her collapse, and everything checked out fine. Broughton is now undergoing a process that will require frequent, multiday hospital stays over the next six to eight months.
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