The moment when you’ve been diagnosed with RA can last an eternity. You’re sitting in a rheumatologist’s office and the doctor is explaining to you what Rheumatoid Arthritis is, and probably what it was. Because what RA is and what RA was are two separate things. Sitting in the waiting room can be a terrifying experience. Elderly men and women in wheelchairs, on walkers or sporting canes, gnarled hands and shuffling feet. RA was a different disease 15 years ago. It was a different disease 50 years ago. When your …
Do You Play Through the Pain?
I’ve had a lifetime of joyful physical activity. From a childhood on the beach with hours spent in the ocean, on bikes, in the sand playing soccer and volleyball or hiking in the cliffs, there was never a day we kids weren’t in motion. As a teen I learned to love running and as a college student I took up mountaineering and cycling, both on the road and on the trails. Early adulthood brought me back to running and it was only during the 2007 City of Angels Half Marathon …
RA and Non-Remissions
I hate the word remission because I’m not in one. I’ve never been in one. I mean technically the first 38 years of my life were a remission and the next 50 will be something else. Today’s an injection day and one of the reasons I’m grateful for an every 25 day injection schedule is that I only feel like a patient every 25 days. For some reason aches and pains don’t make me feel like a patient. Fatigue does. I find the fatigue to be the most debilitating part …
How to Ignore Pain and Hurt Your Body More: A Lesson in How to not Live with RA
If you have Rheumatoid Arthritis the chances are pretty good that you live with a certain amount of pain. My doctor is always asking what it is on a scale of 1 to 10 and I’m pretty content at a 1 or a 2. I’ve learned to live with it and enjoy my life. Maybe I’ll get into remission one day but it’s entirely possible that I won’t and my life will still be filled with mostly great days. After the initial diagnosis I got immediate relief from various medicines. …
Still Moving Slowly
I’m pacing myself and not over committing this year. I’m spending more time with my IRL community and less time online. The crazy thing is that my online content isn’t suffering. Maybe with fewer twitter updates I’ll actually have something to blog about? I ended up getting a new car last night and it wasn’t the Lexus. I’m kind of bummed because I did love my Lexus but now I’m on to loving something else. I’m sort of trashy that way in my ability to love lots of cars. We’re having uniform …