Tuesday, September 29, 2009
Ok so my 1 year anniv of my RA dx is coming up on Oct. 8th and I am thinking WOW really a year already?? I mean i am doing waaaay better than I was a year ago. but at the same time I am thinking holy crap I am still hurting and faking that smile in public and I am still waiting for the "this is all a joke, boy was I wrong" shoe to drop. It hasn't, and won't. Here I thought I was doing sooo well, feeling better on th whole, and managing to look and act normal enough that 99% of people never would know that there was anything wrong with me. I joke things off and I try to keep my complaints to myself and my husband but I censor how often and what I complain about even to him. I guess I even talked myself into believing that this was really in my head that I was just being a whimp to some degree... I am getting older and everybody has aches and pains add in the fact that I am over weight and of course everything hurts... after all I am out of shape. I backed off most of my meds only taking my humira injection and my Metho. I went all summer without seeing my doctor and trying to live like a normal person that I kept trying to be. Of course all this nonsense had to stop because I could hardly walk anymore due to the pain in my feet and ankles, my hands were starting to hurt again and all the rest of my joints just got on board the "are you crazy train" and flared up. Ok so I admit I TRIED to pretend it wasnt a flare until I was too tired and hurting to much and too depressed from all it to even try and fake it. I went back to my doctor, went back on my meds and followed all the rules....fast forward and well the tests are showing that the humira isn't working anymore time to switch meds. to embrel or whatever, and to start back on the presonide and up the level of metho.... ugh it all just frustrated me so. Then one day last week as I am hobbling around the house for the 11th day in a row (because I thought I was superman and decided to stand on a ladder all day one weekend and paint my kitchen) i realized something... I am really stupid. I mean it. I am stupid. All this time I am fighting it but not in the way I should be. I am fighting myself and the fact that I am not going to make this go away and I should be fighting the RA and FOR my joints not against them. So later as I kept thinking about it all i realized I was using RA as an excuse to not lose weight and that I ate because I can still do that without hurting and I look normal when I do that. Ask me to run or lift weights, or even walk for very long and I don't look normal. There is a limp and stern look of "omg this hurts but I won't admit it hurts" on my face. lol As I have mentioned before I don't talk about RA with anybody, heck I rarely even talk to my family about it. I would rather be the one helping not the one needing help so in my mind its easier to just ingore it thus i don't ask for help and nobody offers help. So anyhow i am back on this weight loss train, trying not to fall off track. And one of the things I am going to do different is take a step outside of the box and try being honest and talking about RA and how I am feeling. Hopefully by talking about it I won't have to hold it all in and eat it... and maybe the weight will come off and in time lessen the pain in my poor feet who have to carry my fat butt around. haha I am always joking with my mom that to keep doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results is just insane... so I am gonna take my own advice and stop doing things the same way, change things up and who knows maybe I will lose some weight and maybe even come to accept the fact that I am normal just the way I am RA and all.... just a different kind of normal. :)
have a great week!
have a great week!
Wouldn't it be nice to be "normal" again? I think we all walk around like there isnothing wrong. What else can we do, most people wouldn't believe us if we told them how much it hurt anyway. And its better than the alternative, my mother acts as if I am dying and looks at me with pity,all the time. I can't get away from it. All the dr appts.for the ra and then the ones to fix the side effects fromthe meds for ra. It seems like it never ends. "normal" seems like a lifetime away. So whats left to do? Grin and bear it and hope there is someone you can talk to. Hopefully you will find that you can speak to someone openly.