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The Seated View

By Lene Andersen. Health care writer, RA and disability advocate, wheelchair user and camera nut. Author of Your Life with Rheumatoid Arthritis: Tools for Managing Treatment, Side Effects and Pain

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September 12, 2007

From this

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And finally, at long last, to this

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Weight Gain and Biologics: The Battle of the Pudge

January 13, 2016

The Seated View has moved . I am still bringing you the information and support you need to live a better life with RA and chronic illness, just on another site. I'd love for you to visit my new website ! - Lene If you want to leave a comment or question about weight gain, RA, and Biologics and are looking for answers or feedback, please jump to this post on my new site . It has the capability for direct replies, this site does not. You can also reach me at leneATyourlifewithraDOTcom. - Thanks, Lene I’ve known from the beginning that Biologics can affect your weight. When I was on Enbrel, I couldn’t keep weight on, and looked anorexic despite eating like a horse. When I switched to Humira, I started gaining weight. I, who had never before spent much time past a size 6, became a 10. After years of being literally skin and bones, it suited me just fine. And then the gaining continued, until finally settling around a weight that requires a 16 pant. Never havin...

I Survived the ICU

April 26, 2016

So, where was I…? The last time I posted, I had the flu and was pretty miserable. It was the precursor to a roller coaster ride into a very dark place. The flu turned into pneumonia, which sent me to the hospital in the middle of March. There was a trip to the ER, admitted into isolation, and then to the ICU with Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome (ARDS — only click on that link if you enjoy chills going up and down your spine). Interestingly, this may have had more to do with my asthma than my being immunosuppressed. Anyway, I was put in an induced coma on a ventilator, and had an emergency tracheostomy . Photo credit: Ken Allen Soon after, I came as close as it is possible to dying, and actually flatlined for 10 seconds during another nerve-racking event. We figure that officially makes me a zombie. What? Too soon? I remember none of it. Well, that’s not entirely true. There is a blank space between the several days before I went to the ER an...

Fun with Attendants

July 21, 2010

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about living independently in the community and how that can be facilitated by attendants. These are people whose job is to be your hands and feet, doing things that you cannot do yourself or that would take an unreasonable amount of time or effort to do. In Ontario , some people receive such assistance through agencies, others get direct funding from the Ministry of Health to hire and manage their own staff. Life with staff can be interesting. Once you learn how to direct you care - in other words, you don't ask somebody to cook you a pork chop, you direct them through each step of the process - it's pretty easy and as long as you and they remember to be polite and interact as decent people, things are relatively painless. Relatively. Because there are snags that come from dealing with people and their individual foibles, snags that come from being pulled into agency/staff politics, snags of a different sort that you may get to experience if y...