Rheumatoid Arthritis: A Writer's Ramblings
As a writer of fiction, I’m used to getting my own way. I’m a control freak. A megalomaniac, if you will. {insert villainous laughter here}
I determine who falls in love and who doesn’t.
I determine who dies and who doesn’t.
I determine the fate of my characters and carefully pave their way to The End.
However this blog isn’t fiction, it’s real. If something crops into the plot that throws out my plans, I can’t simply hit the delete key and start over. For this bit of prose, I don’t have an insight into the outcome nor do I have much say about how it all ends but like my novel writing, I can decide on the road to take, the way to approach it.
“You have Rheumatoid Arthritis,” my doctor said.
I’m pretty sure I zoned out for a minute there while I searched my memory for any recognition of those words only to be drawn back to the conversation with other words such as chronic pain, no cure and deformity. I did however cling desperately, like a drowning woman to a life preserver, to two words in particular. Non fatal. Hey, at this point I’ll take what I can get.
Don’t get me wrong, amidst the initial shock there was also a spattering of relief. After over 12 months of numerous doctors, different blood tests and procedures, not to mention the overall sense that some thought I was a hypochondriac, the pain I had been enduring is finally recognised. Now it has a name, we can get to know each other and hopefully find a way to live together.
It’s a funny thing where my mind went first when confronted with this news. Certainly not to things like how will it affect my job or will I still be able to drive. My first thought went to my hobbies, the things I choose to do because they bring me joy. How am I to continue writing with swollen knuckles and sore wrists? How can I attend my karate classes with puffy ankles and painful joints?
So, now I have a diagnosis. I still have pain but I also have pages of reading material and a referral letter to see a specialist – and like Vanessa in my first novel, Midnight Runners, I have a plethora of unanswered questions. But that’s okay. I need a bit of time to let this sink in, to do some research and I need to be able to associate this disease with me because these things usually happen to someone else, don’t they?
I hope that by sharing this journey, others may also benefit from my experiences, even if only in the smallest of ways. Please know that as a writer, I take great pleasure in being melodramatic. As a person, I am neither pessimist nor optimist but a self-proclaimed realist. The pessimist complains about the wind, the optimist expects it to change, the realist adjusts the sails. Let’s hope I can navigate through this without hitting any icebergs!
