When I first crossed over into the land of the ill and infirm, I did a lot of research, looking to find stories about individuals coping with serious illness. Though most weren’t specific to rheumatoid arthritis, there were an abundance of stories out there, but I was puzzled that so many of them seemed to espouse what I found to be a rather surprising virtue: that you should be grateful for your illness and all the great many lessons it could teach you. I even heard people say that if they...