July 4, 2004

Intro To My Life With RA

When people ask me what Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA) is like, I'm sometimes stumped to explain to them in terms that they would understand. I don't mean this as if people couldn't understand, just that sometimes the right words fail me.

I suppose that RA is a lot like the ocean having tides. Sometimes it's low tide and the water gently laps the shore. Not too much sand is eroded away, and the beach reveals its treasures: shells, coral, the occasional hermit crab scurrying around. Things are calm. Then the tides shift and come in. The waves hit the shore more aggressively, taking more of the beach away into the ocean. Water begins to cover the spots that were previously in the sun. This is kind of how it feels when the joints in your body start to swell from RA.

I was diagnosed with RA in my early 20s, although I had symptoms before that... I just didn't know what it was. It was a shock to learn what was happening to me. That's putting it pretty clinically. I really went through the gamut of emotions: grief, anger, frustration, sadness, fear, and finally acceptance. Acceptance came only after I realized an essential truth, my life was not over.

RA can make life different. But since I adopted a "never give in" attitude about it, I don't feel like I've given up. Maybe that's the most important part.

As way of introduction, this is pretty short and sweet, and a little, well, introduction-ish. My goal is to write about living with RA, and about how to get past the things that would otherwise limit me. And I hope that others with RA can relate or get ideas for their own life. If you let RA limit your life, it will. But then again, I watch others limit their lives with a whole host of other things. We all have our problems, our crosses to bear. It's in the how we do it that makes the biggest difference between giving up or not.

My name is Renee, which in French means "reborn." I've been trying to live up to it.

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