What Others Need to Know About the Battle Living with Rheumatoid Arthritis May is Arthritis Awareness Month! As a rheumatoid arthritis patient, I am using this month as an opportunity to promote education and awareness of this debilitating disease and provide some much-needed insight from a patient’s point of view. With RA, it’s not easy to live a “normal” life. We must overcome a myriad of challenges every day. In my case, I take a lot of medication just to be able to get up and move every day. In fact, I typically wake up two hours early every morning just to allow enough time for my rheumatoid medication to “kick in.” And every day tools, such as a shower chair, cane, modified cooking utensils, brace or sling, are essential to get through the day and make daily life more manageable. Most RA patients learn to adapt and can rearrange their plans on a moment’s notice. The reality is that it’s extremely difficult to make plans as the nature of the disease causes
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Day 5 - 2017 RA Blog Week Wildcard : Caught in the Cross -Fire I do my best to stay positive and upbeat. But something happened to me recently that challenged even my positive outlook. At the end of May, I received a letter from my rheumatologist office. Not expecting anything out of the ordinary, I opened the letter and after reading it felt my world was crashing around me. It took my breath away. Tears began to flow. "As of _____ date, we are no longer accepting H______ Insurance. Please call your insurance company for referrals to another rheumatologist in your area". Cold, direct to the point...not " we regret to inform you", or due to circumstances...". My insurance company is a large, well known insurance company which covers millions of people nationwide. Why would my doctor decide to no longer accept this insurance? This did not make sense. I felt abandoned, confused, angry and quite honestly, scared. After all, we had developed a coll
RA Blog Week - Day 3 My Knight in Shining Armor in a 2011 Crown Victoria with Red and Blue Lights on Top
Many girls are raised to believe that a Knight in Shining Armor on a big white horse will swoop into their lives to save them and they will live happily ever after. They are obviously tall dark and handsome and girls swoon as they walk by overcome with their good looks....UGH. I don't believe in Fairy Tales or at least I didn't until I was in my 50's. You see, unbeknownst to me, my Knight in Shining Armor is a bald guy who rode into my life in a 2011 Crown Victoria with Red and Blue Lights on top of his car. I had been widowed for close to twenty years, losing my late husband to an inoperable brain tumor. My life quickly became all about our young children - our youngest son was 4 years old at the time of his death. I became both mom and dad and was solely responsible for making sure they were raised to be good people, get a college education and have a great start on their lives. Both kids were involved in sports which provided a foundation for their college educat
2017 RA Blog Week Day 2: My Tricks and Tips to Work Around My Physical Difficulties and Limitations
I still grieve for the old me - one who can run, work 16 hours a day, and still have energy for family responsibilities and activities. The diagnosis of Rheumatoid Arthritis six years ago ended life as I knew it. No longer is my energy level guaranteed from day to day. Some days my mind is "fogged in" more than others, and pain levels are never the same. The level of frustration at having these challenges is something that I have never experienced. As a means of "survival", I've learned to use different strategies and methods to accomplish goals and still enjoy my life. One of the most important strategies I've adopted is to use the many gadgets that are available to those of us who have RA or other forms of arthritis. I start my day using a shower chair. This allows me to sit down on those days where standing is difficult, or raising my arms to wash my hair is challenging. These can be purchased at most pharmacies. A big area of challenge for me