BABIES, BAD KNEES, AND BICYCLES

By the time our daughter was two years old, we had moved to Alabama. We found an upstairs apartment in a nice complex inhabited by a number of other military families. The apartments were in a secluded area, rather off the beaten path and surrounded by woodland. A great place for long walks in the afternoon.

Shortly after moving to the area, we became acquainted with a family at the other end of our block of apartments. The father and mother were both enlisted, and soon I had agreed to care for their 18 month old twins. I had thought about going back to work, but didn’t really want to because our daughter was still so young, so this was a great arrangement.

All my life, I had been very active. From the time I could walk, I had traveled my childhood neighborhood in the company of my brother and other older children living nearby. It worked out that most of the kids living in closest proximity to us were males, so I had learned early on to rough-house, climb trees, skateboard, run on stilts, and ride my bicycle for hours on end. That’s what kids did in those days. Summers were spent at the swimming pool. Winters were spent sledding and building snow forts or ice skating. We didn’t sit around.

Plus, when I finally found other girls to spend time with, I danced, participated in gymnastics, played tennis, rode horses and chased boys. You have to be in pretty good physical shape to successfully chase boys.

So because of the relatively healthy lifestyle I had lived – I never tasted a fast-food hamburger until I was sixteen – I couldn’t understand the constant aching and pain in my legs. The hip pain had now progressed to my knees. And I was tired all the time. I was chasing three toddlers around all day, and trying to keep up with a very active twelve-year-old, and the regular everyday chores that women do, but I wasn’t doing anything that would explain the intensity of the pain I was experiencing.

I got to the point where I couldn’t find the strength to pick the twins up – the girl was average size, but the little boy was a hefty one – so I began laying them on a towel on the floor to change their diapers. But suddenly I could barely lift myself up from the kneeling position on the floor. I realized the seriousness of the situation one day when the babies all started pushing on my behind and grunting as they tried to lift ‘mamaw’ off the floor. We fell in a heap of giggles and tears while I tickled them mercilessly. The giggles were because the whole thing was laughable, but the tears were because I was scared, and in pain, and I didn’t know if I’d manage to get up or not.

So, back to the doctor I went. I have a deep respect for our military, but some of their practices are ridiculous. Or they were, back in the day.

The protocol at that time was for the patient to make an appointment.  The appointment afforded you a visit with a PA. The PA would screen you and decide if you actually needed to be seen by a physician. If you had cold symptoms, for instance, they would just issue you a ‘cold pack’ and send you to the pharmacy. Too bad if you were afflicted with strep or bronchitis. You’d have to come back when your symptoms worsened and hope to be lucky enough to get through next time. It was maddening, and especially so for me, because I had no fever, no obvious signs of disease, just continued complaints of vague, traveling aches and pains. So it took weeks to actually get to see a physician.

Of course, I could have saved myself the trouble. This time I got a wisecracking expert who again x-rayed my hips and knees, and came to the brilliant conclusion that I was lazy, and needed more exercise. His prescription was for me to start riding a bicycle every day, and to come back in a month.

So what did I do? I dragged my bicycle out of the shed, plopped daughter into her infant carrier behind my seat, and rode my blasted bicycle. I rode it every day. I rode it for miles. I rode it until I literally had to drag myself up the steps to our apartment using the handrail. I rode until I had to sit at the top of the stairs and lower myself, step by step, to the bottom. My knees swelled and didn’t want to bend when I said bend, or straighten when I said straighten.

I quit babysitting. I quit riding my bicycle. I quit going out. I quit doing many of the things I loved. It took every ounce of my draining energy to care for my child. I cried. Lots and lots of crying. My husband was going nuts because he didn’t know how to ‘fix’ things. He’s always been a fixer. He insisted I go back to the doctor, but I refused. It wouldn’t do any good. At that time, I was beginning to think that all Army doctors were a bunch of idiots.

Then my husband received orders for Germany, and I went home for a couple of months until he could arrange for us to join him. Lower humidity. Closer family support system. Life got better. For a little while, at least.

ACHES, ANXIETY AND A-HOLES

I don’t make a habit of resorting to vulgarities, but occasionally I succumb to the low-mindedness that allows a few to escape my fingertips. My apologies if I offend anyone’s sensitivities. But there is a very good likelihood that at some point in your journey with RA, you will find yourself at the mercy of a doctor who is uninformed, ignorant, or just plain rude. It’s not entirely their fault. We put far too much trust into the hands of physicians, who, by their own admission, are practicing the art of medicine. It usually takes years, an acute mind, or a combination of both to acquire the skills or intuitiveness to recognize RA in its early stages.

Lately I’ve noticed that many of my writer friends who blog are participating in a game in which they follow the alphabet with their blog posts. I liked the idea, so decided I would try it with this journal, although I won’t guarantee I continue all the way through the twenty-six letters. I’ll go until I get stuck, and then, unless someone steps in and rescues me, I’ll drop it. Perhaps readers will share their own thoughts in the same manner, which could be a lot of fun for all of us.  And if there is anything we need in our lives, it’s more fun, or more reasons to laugh.

I don’t have a clue as to when the seed for this disease was first planted within my depths. I was in my mid twenties when I realized something weird was happening with my body. We were stationed in Kentucky. (My husband was in the Army.)

Kentucky is hot in the summer, and extremely humid. I began waking up in the night – every night, it seemed – with severe leg aches. I sleep on my side, and my hips began hurting so badly that I would toss and turn all night long. At first I attributed it to the cold from the air-conditioning. I hadn’t grown up with refrigerated air, so I thought it was a matter of not being used to it. So I turned it off and opened the windows. That only increased the discomfort and pain in my legs. The best explanation I could come up with for the feeling was like a toothache in my legs, which usually resulted in strange looks from family members or close friends who couldn’t imagine the feeling I was trying to convey.

My parents came to visit that summer. My husband was away on military business, and my daughter was very young, so they came out to help me with her since they knew I was experiencing some minor problems. I hadn’t given my latest sleeping attire much thought until the first night they were at the house. My mother came into my room to show me something, and she burst out laughing for no apparent reason. I waited patiently for her to explain the joke that I had somehow missed, thinking my dad had done something silly. But after a moment she pointed at me and asked, “What in the world are you wearing?”

The smile left my face as I glanced down at my pajama ensemble; a strappy red tank top and my husband’s Army issue woolen long johns. Just a few nights earlier, in an act of desperation, I had donned my husband’s winter underwear in an effort to relieve the nightly leg aches. And, it had helped, even though I had to crank up the air-conditioning and place a fan near my head to avoid the sauna effect.

My mom listened politely and with much sympathy to my complaints and efforts to alleviate them, and then asked me why I hadn’t gone to a doctor. This is where the first of the A-holes comes in. I explained that I had gone to the doctor, several times, and he had finally determined that it was all in my head. I had the typical Army Wife Syndrome. He explained that there was nothing wrong with me. After all, he had x-rayed my hips and no structural damage was evident. So he deduced that my problem was caused by the fact that my spouse was spending lots of time down range or out on maneuver, and I had nothing better to do with my time than dream up symptoms and run to the doctor’s office every chance I had. Puh-leeeeease.

Of course, at the time I was still fairly young, so even though I knew how painful my legs became each night, part of me believed him. That served to raise my anxiety levels ten-fold. Not only was I suffering from lack of restful sleep, increasing pain that was beginning to interfere with my daily routine, I had also become a hypochondriac. My world was beginning to suck, but it was going to get much worse.

So, that’s it for A. How about you? Do you have a word or a phrase that describes a part of your journey? I’d love to hear it. Or perhaps you have a question. I possess very little scientific knowledge, but there’s always the chance someone else will know it if I can’t find it.

Thanks for dropping by. I’ll try to come up with something a bit more interesting for B, but right now I’m empty. Have a blessed night. Sleep tight. And if you have to wrap yourself in wool, know that someone out here understands.

  

Welcome to my life

I have created this blog all on my own. The excitement I feel in saying that is almost overwhelming, for there are not many things I can say that about. It seems I am becoming more and more dependent on others to manage the most trivial of pursuits. But there was a time when I accomplished nearly nothing without the help of others, so I have come to treasure every small victory.


The purpose of this blog is to serve as a therapeutic outlet. Throughout the many years I have lived with Rheumatoid Arthritis, I have never once written about it. I have talked about it, read information about it, listened to advice about it, railed against it, been totally pissed off about it, suffered depression because of it, been in unimaginable pain because of it, fought against it, pleaded with God to remove it, ignored it, coddled it, and, well, I could probably fill pages with other descriptions and varying actions concerning it, but as I said, I've never put pen to paper, so to speak, and written any words about it.


I don't know if anyone else will share this exercise with me, or if I will do it alone. I welcome one and all, whether you want to learn a bit about the disease, or just out of curiosity, or if you would like to share your own thoughts about it. Please use this blog in any way you wish, as long as it's legal. Perhaps we can learn from one another in that way. My purpose is not to inform or share any medical advice, because I have no expertise in that area. My expertise lies in the fact that I have lived with  the disease for more than half my life. 


Rheumatoid can be deadly, it can be mild. It can go into remission. It can bring you to your knees. Of course, once you're down there, you may have to stay until someone comes along who can raise you back up, especially if you're on a ski slope. Oh, memories!


What I most want to accomplish by this blog is to remind myself, and hopefully others, that there is a humorous side to RA. It certainly isn't always evident, and sometimes it disappears completely. But every so often, when I least expect it, it will crop up, and I am overcome with the need to laugh. And, as they say, whoever 'they' are, laughter is the best medicine. Maybe if we laugh together, we can banish the pain to a place where it will hide and cringe like the coward it is.


That's it for today. It's a start. A beginning. I hope to add a little something every week, but I'm not going to guarantee it. One important lesson that RA has taught me is to be flexible with my time. It's the only thing left to me that even remotely has a chance of being flexible, so it's all good.


Harmony