When I could no longer be a summer person, fall made room for me
Autumn is the time of year when my body and the environment stop arguing
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I used to love summer. I wasn’t just a “summer person” — I lived in it. I was an outdoor lifeguard and swim instructor, spending entire days in the sun, water, and heat without thinking twice. My body used to thrive there.
Until it didn’t. Myasthenia gravis (MG) arrived, and summer became something I watched from behind a window. The heat became my nemesis, a barrier.
I now spend June, July, and August tucked inside with the air conditioner running, watching the season I used to love pass me by. I see the bright days, the blue skies, the people outside living the way I used to — and I find myself jealous because I feel stuck having to stay indoors because my body doesn’t negotiate with heat anymore. MG doesn’t care about nostalgia. It cares about temperature.
Falling for fall
Fall, though? Fall gives me my life back. It’s the season where everything slows down just enough for me to participate again.
The air cools, my symptoms ease, and suddenly the outdoors isn’t an enemy. I can sit on the porch swing wrapped in a blanket, drinking coffee and listening to the quiet of the country. I can breathe without bracing. I can exist without calculating how long I have before my body taps out.
Apple cider becomes a small joy I look forward to, one of those sensory anchors that reminds me I still get to have good things. And while I’m settling into my version of seasonal recovery, my husband settles into his. Fall means hunting season, which gives him a break from caregiver mode and lets him decompress in the woods. It’s his therapy, his reset, and it fills our freezer in the process.
MG shapes our household, but fall gives both of us a little breathing room.
Fall is also when the big medical stuff finally becomes possible. The rest of the world slows down — school starts, routines return, the frantic pace of summer fades — and that shift creates space for me to tackle the complications that come with my health. Appointments, procedures, evaluations, the things that require bandwidth I don’t have in the heat … Fall is when I can actually face them. Not because they’re easier, but because I’m steadier.
Fall isn’t just a season anymore. It feels like permission to just be. It’s the one stretch of the year where my body and the environment stop arguing long enough for me to live a little more fully.
I didn’t choose this rhythm, but I have learned to honor it. Summer used to be my season. MG took that from me.
But fall stepped in quietly and became the time when my world opens back up. A blanket, porch swing, apple cider, husband in the woods, and me finally able to breathe a little easier again.
Note: Myasthenia Gravis News is strictly a news and information website about the disease. It does not provide medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. This content is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of your physician or other qualified health provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition. Never disregard professional medical advice or delay in seeking it because of something you have read on this website. The opinions expressed in this column are not those of Myasthenia Gravis News or its parent company, Bionews, and are intended to spark discussion about issues pertaining to myasthenia gravis.
Greg M Clarke
I was denied insurance coverage for a prostate procedure considered much better for MG patients. I asked Al to help me write an appeals letter. The AI missed the reduced stress component we had just discussed. (BTW I won the appeal anyway). AI is still a good sounding board.
Laurie-Anne Snowman
As I sat here barely able to finish reading this through the tears streaming down my cheeks, my heart is aching. Not only for what you are experiencing, but for your resilience, and for your loss as well as my own. I literally felt as though you had sat down and interviewed me (except my husband definitely isn’t a hunter.)! I was that same girl. A lifeguard, a swim instructor, lived for summer days. Actually mixed baby oil with iodine because I thought it would give me a much nicer tan. I would spend hours in the blistering heat. 2 & 1/2 years ago my world was flipped upside down. The MG bus hit me like a freight train moving at lightening speed. I suddenly went from living my best life on the beautiful lake we reside on, running my salon working full time to make my clients look and feel like the best versions of themselves, being a wife, mother and grandmother to not being able to get out of bed. I could not breathe when I moved, even struggled at rest. My eye would barely open, and the double vision was no joke. My arms and legs felt like I was swimming in a pool of wet cement. The heat was unbareable. I could no longer enjoy lazy afternoons floating on the boat. Unless I was in the water on a float, I was in the house in a recliner. It took almost a year, countless “ologists” and first a diagnosis of Hashimoto’s thyroiditis, but eventually the diagnosis of Seronegative Myasthenia Gravis. I have lost so much, but still have so much to be thankful for in my life, so that is what I try to focus on rather than what I “can’t do” anymore. Thank you so much for sharing your story. It’s so nice to know that we are not alone.