Happy New Year 2010!
Last night at around one in the morning, as I was trying to fall asleep, a major flare presented itself. My anxiety was high and I was on the verge of tears. I decided not to cry – not because I’m ashamed of crying, but because I didn’t want my anxiety to get any worse than it already was. I instead started to focus on taking some deep breaths, and things seemed to get better.
As I started falling asleep, finally, I told myself: “I hope that I don’t have much pain tomorrow, and I hope that my mobility is not compromised.” Feelings of anxiety started to creep back – even though I was hoping for the best, I knew that chances were more than likely that I would have pain and that I would have problems with my hands and my feet the following day. (I did.)
So I amended my original statement, and ended up with: “I hope that I don’t have much pain tomorrow, and I hope that my mobility is not compromised – but if I experience either of these two things tomorrow, I know that I have the strength to get through them, and that I will continue to do the best to take care of myself.”
Just before I dozed off, I thought to myself that this would make a great resolution for the new year.
So for 2010, I would like to wish all of us living with rheumatoid arthritis the best of health, the smallest amount of pain, and the lowest levels of disability. But if pain and disability do decide to present themselves, I wish all of us the physical strength and the emotional peace of mind to cope with these symptoms to the best of our abilities, so that we may continue to grow both individually and as a community.
Cheers and Happy New Year 2010!
Stay tuned…for the next adventure of Rheumatoid Arthritis Guy!
Slipfinger asks:
“She begins, in the morning, by casing her joints: Can her ankles take the stairs? Will her fingers open a jar? Peel an orange? But it was not always this way for Mary Felstiner, who went to bed one night an active professional and healthy young mother, and woke the next morning literally out of joint. With wrists and elbows no longer working right, she’d discovered one of the first signs of rheumatoid arthritis, the most virulent form of a common disease. Out of Joint is her account of living through arthritis, a distinction she shares with seventy million Americans. While arthritis pain affects one out of three Americans, this book is the first to tell the personal story of the nation’s most common yet neglected disease. Part memoir, part medical and social history, Out of Joint folds the author’s private experience into far-reaching investigations of a socially hidden ailment and of any chronic condition—how to handle love, work, sexuality, fatigue, betrayal, pain, time, mortality, rights, myths, and memory. Moving from the 1940s to the present, this story of one life with arthritis exposes little-known medical research and provocative social issues: alarming controversies over arthritis miracle drugs, intense demands concerning disability, and the surprising and disproportionate number of women affected by chronic illness. From this prize-winning historian comes a call for healing through history, a moving meditation on the way chronic conditions can be treated by enlisting the past.”