The Seated View

#RAblog Week is a seven day event from September 21-27, 2015. The brainchild of Rick Phillips , the goal of this week is to raise awareness about rheumatoid arthritis and build community. Hop on over to the RADiabetes site to learn more about #RABlog Week and find links to other participants. For Day 6 of #RABlog Week, the prompt was to write about our first memories of RA. One of my first memories of RA is also one of my first memories, period. My mother is pushing me in a stroller along a dirt road not far from the cottage my parents had rented for a week. The sun is shining, the air smells of pine and sand, and I can hear the crunch of the stroller wheels as they move over the path. I know I am too old to be in a stroller, but my left ankle is swollen and it hurts to walk. We think it’s a particularly nasty mosquito bite. I am four years old.   Me at about 3 years old,  shortly before symptoms of JA first appeared I’m sitting in a crib-like bed, the sides c

#RAblog Week is a seven day event from September 21-27, 2015. The brainchild of Rick Phillips , the goal of this week is to raise awareness about rheumatoid arthritis and build community. Hop on over to the RADiabetes site to learn more about #RABlog Week and find links to other participants. For Day 5 of #RABlog Week, we were asked to share how we stay active.  “It’s important that you stay active.” We’ve all heard it. I bet every single doctor you’ve ever seen for anything related to your RA has at some point mentioned how important it is that you move your body. And it is — the words “use it or lose it” applies with extra force to this disease. Another factor is that “motion is lotion,” to quote my friend Britt (a.k.a. Hurtblogger). Once you get moving, you’ll find that it gets easier, and may even reduce pain. The problem is that doctors never tell you how to stay active with a body that hurts. They just tell you to do so and send you on your way. Which i

#RAblog is a seven day event from September 21-27, 2015. The brainchild of Rick Phillips, the goal of this week is to raise awareness about rheumatoid arthritis and build community. Up on over to the RADiabetes site to learn more about #RABlogWeek and find links to other participants. For Day 4 of #RABlog Week, we were asked to share 5 things we’ve learned from RA. Here are mine. Living with juvenile arthritis or, as I simply call it now (because it’s easier) RA, for 49 years has taught me endless lessons. Some of them good, some of them the kind that you’d rather live without. All of them have helped me grow. Crying doesn’t change anything . When I was 11 years old, I was admitted to a rehab hospital on the Danish coast in the hope that it would do something for my JA. I hated every minute of it. It was an awful place and I cried for three weeks. It got me no comfort from the staff, and my deep unhappiness did not factor into the decision about how long I was staying (th