All posts tagged: RA team members

RA doctor visit

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Here in sunny Albuquerque we are expecting the thermometer to hit 104 this week. It is that time of year where hanging out in the house is a good idea. 90 is livable but once it passes 92, it is just too hot. My son is keeping the garden watered so we won’t have any plants that succumb to heat stroke. I finally connected with my RA Doc.  After x-rays, blood work and an exam, she can see the excruciating pain that I am in. She is thinking hip replacement. Tomorrow I have an MRI. I have an appointment with an orthopedic surgeon early in July. In the mean time she ordered Percocet and said to call if I needed more. I guess this is the holding pattern until the next step is reached. I am amazed that the pain is so immobilizing. I am still trying to do some restorative yoga, but there is something not moving the way it should so I am going with forward bends and shower wall push ups. Maybe …

Four years with RA

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It was four years this month that I was officially diagnosed with Rheumatoid Arthritis. Learning to accept my situation and learning to manage my disease was not easy. Pain is constant. It just varies in intensity. Fatigue is overwhelming and was constant the first few years. The RA process of medication trial and error was discouraging. Medication side effects were hard to tolerate. Underneath it all, the knowledge of living with a progressive disease was disconcerting. Add to the mix, I was diagnosed with stage three thyroid cancer and breast cancer the same year that I was diagnosed with the RA. Both included surgery and radiation treatment. Yet here I am four years later. I am still struggling but I am surviving and maybe thriving. I wake in pain. I go to bed in pain. Pain is discouraging and even depressing. Many of my joints are affected by RA. Fingers, toes, feet and hands, elbows, wrists, shoulders and jaw. So, I am blanketed in pain. I take meloxicam and methylprednisolone for inflammation. I take gabapentin …

Massage and RA

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Garrett is amazing.  He is tall and lanky. Arty. Welcoming. He is a student at the ABQ School of Massage and he gave me a massage at their free cancer clinic. I remember my first experience. Coming out of the massage room, I felt renewed. Massage therapy started as a new adventure for me.  My RA needed help.  So did I.    Massage therapy seemed like a good thing to try. I made the appointment. After the first massage,  I received an email from Garrett asking if I would be the subject of his case study on Rheumatoid Arthritis. I would receive six free massages. He would ask me questions about my RA.  Of course, I said yes.  I needed another tool in my RA toolbox. I am a lucky woman.  My adventure continues. Today was my 5th massage. I follow the routine of each massage. I check off my choices on Garrett’s  before pain scale sheet. Next I undress in the massage room and slide under the sheet and blanket.  Lights are low.  A quiet space.  …