Rheumatoid Arthritis: Trust Your Instincts

One day I woke up, and it took me 15 minutes to tie my boots because my hands hurt so badly and they were swollen. Everything just hurt. I mean, I think everything hurt but my eyeballs. So I made an appointment at the military clinic. I went in and things kind of changed. She threw out this thing, this term, "rheumatoid arthritis." That particular doctor told me that I would be crippled within six months of her diagnosis, that I would be completely debilitated. At that point, the military clinic sent me to a civilian doctor. She just prescribed all this stuff that made me very sick. Every time I went to that particular doctor, she would tell me that I was going to die. My daughter was six. How do you go home to a six-year-old and be okay? Once I decided I wasn't going to be sick, and it didn't matter what those doctors said, I was going to have a good quality of life, then my life changed. I started doing my own research. I looked at dietary changes I could make, ways to increase my physical activity. I started researching my own doctors. I have a friend who was telling me about her doctor. He listens. If I say this medicine isn't working for me, we'll try something different. When I said, "Hey, I want to try physical therapy and see if that helps me," he was all for it. And that helped out tremendously. My activity level went from maybe a 2 to like 15. Some people tell me I work out too much, but that's because I feel good. When you go from a place where you can barely get out of bed, you can barely get yourself dressed... I couldn't even get up and down off the floor during some of the bad moments but now I'm doing yoga. Now, it doesn't look good, it's not pretty, but hey, I'm doing it. At my lowest point, my daughter had to help me get dressed. All I wanted to do was be able to pull my own socks on or undergarments on. On my bad days, I remember those days because those days were so much worse. And it helps me to just appreciate now, appreciate the fact that I can get myself dressed and put on makeup and brush my teeth by myself, get in and out of the shower by myself. It's been a life changer and it hasn't been all bad. I'm a much more calm person because I know if I freak out, my body's going to freak out. I may not be able to run 10 miles anymore, but I can run two. And if I can't run two, then I can walk. And if I can't walk, then I just put one foot in front of the other and be okay with that.