The Heartbreak of Missing Out Because of Chronic Illness




There are blank spaces in my life when I had to disappear because my RA flared and I only had enough energy to get through each day. In my new post for HealthCentral, I share what it’s like to miss out because of chronic illness:

"There are many different ways of getting there, but the end result is never fun. Sometimes you did too much, sometimes the meds stop working (or never worked at all), sometimes you have to stop the meds because of surgery or illness. And then your rheumatoid arthritis (RA) comes tap dancing back into your life, top hat, tuxedo, and a tremendous TA-DA!
For you, this doesn’t mean dancing and parties. It means your life closes down.
I’ve been there since the holidays last year. Right after Christmas, I got a nasty case of croup. It was bad enough in itself, but also necessitated going off my biologic for over a month. Just as I was starting to heal from the croup, able to speak again and get back into life, whatever medication I had stored in my body started to run really low. Enter the RA flare, complete with aching joints and intense fatigue."

Read the rest of the post on HealthCentral. 
 

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