A Big Confession

I am 43 years old. No, that isn't the confession - this is: I have rheumatoid arthritis. I was diagnosed with it when I was 2 1/2 years old. My first clear memory is of sitting on our old nagahide brown couch in my living room with Mommy kneeling beside me. I was crying because it felt as if each and every joint, especially my right knee, was being torn apart. Mommy was crying and saying, "Tell me what it is, baby. Tell Mommy where it hurts." The problem was, I couldn't. I didn't know how to make the words sound or tell her it was my "knee" or anything else. All I could do was cry in absolute agony and pain. I was 2.

I was in and out of hospitals so much from that point forward really. I was given up to die many times and was told at the age of 6 I would not live to be 18, which sent my Mom into fighting fits.

Now I am 43 and have survived this long only because of the Grace of God and because I just couldn't give up. Mommy and Daddy wouldn't let me because they wouldn't let themselves.

Again the pain is reaching that unbearable stage and I am having a horrendous time making myself pick up the pieces and fight on.

Today was a breaking point for me and I had to make a decision: Do I just go ahead and let myself accept "the inevitable" condition I am going to be in? Or, do I buckle down and start fighting again?

It would seem the answer would be a simple one, but it wasn't, isn't.

Pain has a way of robbing you of your vitality, your desire to keep going and living. It robs you of everything that makes you who you are and especially who you want to be. All that really matters, after a while, is that the pain just stops. It doesn't matter how it stops; all that matters is that it stops.

I am weaker now than I have been in a long time. I am going to have to discover a way of keeping going, taking the pain and keeping going.

I want to live. I know that. I want to live and live as pain free as possible, yet what cost is this going to be? How much pain am I going to have to endure in order to strengthen my muscles and hopefully move just a little easier without all the pain? I'm not so sure I can do it, really.

Hubby says I can. Hubby wants to become a natural medicine doctor, not just to help me, but to help others.

All my life all I have wanted to be able to do, when it really boiled down to everything, was to be able to beat the crap out of someone who called me a "cripple." I am not a cripple. Cripples are people who give up. I was determined that if you were going to give me a title call me "handicapped" because that meant achieving something through difficulty.

Today I almost let myself slip into "cripple" mode and I hated it. A wake-up call? It was far more than a wake-up call. It was a realization that all of my discipline and all of my hope had really vanished. I'm not sure where it went or when it went, but it was gone.

I have to fight this again. I have to go through the pain and make myself stronger. I have to find a way to live and be happy, but there is this nagging little voice at the back of my head that wonders if I can really do it. Can I do it ... again?

I'm not a young girl any more with the stupid impression I can over-come anything if I just work at it hard enough. But, if I can't "overcome it" can I at least find a way to live my life with as little pain as possible, and without having to take as much pain medication as I would really need in order to have the pain stop (so far my medications are Bextra, and occasionally some Ultram for pain, and a little muscle relaxer). Nothing I am taking now is going to give me relief totally.

So, I guess the only thing left for me to do is to try and figure out a way of living, of moving, or being happy with this new horrible phase of pain. How can it hurt so much when I have so little joint material left?

I think I am going to seriously look into tai chi and qi gong and begin again, pick up, not where I left off, but the very beginning.

I am so tired of pain, Dear Readers, and, I ask your indulgence that, if, within the next few days and weeks I speak of troubles and pains that you be understanding and an occasional word of encouragement wouldn't be so bad along the way either.

Getting back into the world of the almost-pain-free is going to be just as much a mental game as a physical one, and I fear myself to be rusty.