How can life be so hard and so good at the same time?
Life can be very hard when you have RA, but it can also be very good.
All posts filed under: RA journal
RA is painful and it is disabling.
Living with RA is tough. It is a painful and disabling disease.
The quail, the roadrunner and me
I have a busy back yard with quail, chipmunks and roadrunners. In some ways we are very much the same.
My RA book
I have started working on my book again. It has been slow for many reasons especially since the diagnosis of RA creates complex changes in a person’s life.
RA In the kitchen
In the kitchen with RA When I was twelve, I road my bike downtown with my mom’s green stamp book in my pocket. I road my bike back home with my first Betty Crocker Cookbook . I still have it. Now I have many recipe resources including the food section in the NY Times, All recipes and Martha Stewart emails, and King Arthur Baking Recipes. Now I have Rheumatoid Arthritis and my life has added uphill challenges. Between RA pain and fatigue, doctor visits and drug complications, ambition frequently descends into the basic mode of required activity. That activity is as basic as getting dressed in the morning. Cooking? Is it really necessary anymore especially when you add the difficulties of RA to the mix? For some of us, it is. I like to cook. I like the taste of homemade meals. I like the fragrance of baking bread coming from the oven. I enjoy working with my tools and ingredients in my kitchen. Fresh fruit and veggies. Organic chicken. Cream, buttermilk, unsalted butter. Working …
RA at eight years
My eight years with RA has been a rocky road. I am now on Orencia and it again is helpful. Orencia suppresses the T cells in the immune system.00
As RA progresses add tools to help.
As RA progresses, adding tools to help ourselves get around will make our lives so much easier.
Mary’s RA Journal, not a good day
Rheumatoid arthritis is not for the weak of heart. There will be good days and then there will be very bad days.
RA Journal Progression
Mary’s Arthritis Journal May 8, 2021 I have always been amazed by those who can work through illness. I once had a friend who had a chronic leukemia. During episodes of chemo, she found that she could not sleep. Instead of watching endless Netflix, she spent her nights researching and writing a successful blog on ghost stories. She used her down time to her advantage. I am not like her. I wallow. I vegetate. My brain seems to stop working. When my rheumatoid arthritis is sending inflammatory messengers throughout my body, when pain is attacking every moveable joint, when I have depleted my stores of coping, I retreat. My body feels sick. My research goes on hold as does my writing. My mind is stuck in a quagmire. There is only a wish to escape and a hope that there will be an end, and in that end, I will be alive again. I will be okay. My flares are becoming something to be feared. My ankles and my toes remain swollen. It is very …
Managing RA
I am an optimist. But I am also a realist. When faced with a painful situation, I sometimes dance around the issue for a few turns. Then, painful, or not, I face whatever it is, deal with it and then do my best to move on. Stiff upper lip and all that. Each time I was diagnosed with a new cancer I did just that. I never once thought why me. I had the surgery, the chemo, the radiation. Suffered through it. Recovered for the most part and moved on. I felt that none of those three cancers would ever return as the treatments were brutal to my body and left nothing unaffected. My method of handling problems worked with cancer. Then I was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis almost eight years ago. RA is a painful, debilitating and a lifelong disease. It is a disease that must be dealt with daily. RA will not go away just because I am weary of living with it. It is forever. It is not a problem to be …
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