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Tue, 17 May 2011

When it first started, it felt kind of good. Of course, I had no idea what was going on. I had a tough couple of days at work, and each day I woke up feeling sore all over. "Nice," I thought. Years ago, when I first started my job, the job got me into pretty decent shape. Since then, I'd become efficient at everything, and hence got a lot less exercise.

I'd never really experienced a situation in which soreness was a bad thing.

The pain got worse each day, and so I started taking it easy. By far, the worst pain was in my hamstrings and knees, but truthfully I felt bad all over. Finally I told Christa that I thought something was wrong with me, and I described my symptoms. Her first reaction was exactly what I'd been thinking: Lyme disease.

Finally it got to the point where I couldn't go to work at all. I called in sick and made an appointment to see my doctor.

The visit was brief. I described my pain. My symptoms. The doctor made me lean back on the table while he manipulated my legs. I can't describe that pain. He walked out of the room and returned with a blue sheet of paper. Stretching exercises. He told me I had tendonitis in my hamstrings. I asked about taking more time off work and he said he couldn't help me with that, muttering something about some other bureaucratic department I should contact while he ran out of the room with the word "lawsuit" flashing above his head.

I tried the stretching exercises. They didn't help at all. In fact, they caused more pain than I had before. I went back to work and tried to do my job. People there were understanding. I figured out a way I could rest more while I was there. It wasn't enough.

Each day when I woke up ... that was when it hurt the worst. I would lay in bed and dread the thought of trying to stand up. Sometimes it would take up to two hours to get out of bed.

And then I'd have to walk down the stairs, which can only be described as a "process."

All of this got progressively worse until I could barely walk at all. At that point I called in sick and went to the emergency room. My ankles were swollen. My wrists also hurt. Obviously this wasn't tendonitis.

The ER doctor said what I had thought all along. This is most likely Lyme disease. He ran tests, which wouldn't be processed for several days. He prescribed antibiotics for the Lyme disease and narcotics for the pain. I spent the next week watching TV in a narcotic haze, which sounds fun, but lost its shine after about two hours.

The Lyme test came back negative. My regular doctor was at a loss. But really there was only one option left: an autoimmune disease. He sent me to a rheumatologist.

The rheumatologist tested me for Lyme disease again, and also for a handful of viruses as well as rheumatoid arthritis and lupus. Everything came back negative, which didn't really mean anything in the case of RA, since RA reads a false negative in 30% of cases.

He prescribed prednisone, which had me feeling relatively great almost immediately. Hyperactive, insatiably hungry, but able to walk at least.

Over the next several months, we set about ruling out every possible disease other than RA. Eventually, there was no other choice. Rheumatoid Arthritis it is.

RA is no picnic. Do a Google Image search if you want to see some nasty worst-case scenario nightmares. If you're not into body horror, just think of Igor in the old Frankenstein movies. Just think of twisted old ladies in rocking chairs in the Appalachians.

No one knows what causes this. They say it's partially genetic and partially environmental. Apparently I've been exposed to something, some virus or some toxin, that flipped a switch inside me. My immune system now thinks my joints are the enemy.

Lucky for me it's 2011. RA is still incurable, but there are treatments for this now, unlike 20 years ago. Sure, they're expensive, somewhat dangerous treatments. But there are treatments. I'm thankfully no longer on prednisone, which is a temporary fix with a lot of inevitable side-effects. I can walk just fine. You wouldn't know that I'm diseased if you met me.

So has my life changed in the past year? Hell yes. I think the worst thing has been being hyper aware of every little problem with my body, always wondering if something is a new symptom or a hideous side-effect of the treatment. It usually turns out to be something unrelated and benign. But I'm still in the beginning stages of treatment and there's a lot to figure out still. We don't know if my current treatment (a type of chemotherapy that I take in very small doses) is going to really take, or if I'm going to have to switch to something more serious.

Last August, I quit drinking alcohol as it can potentially complicate my treatment, which is already very hard on the liver. And the way things are now, quite a few of the things I eat are beginning to disgust me. I can't believe the poisons we put into our bodies on a regular basis. I'm not sure where I want to go with my diet. It's already pretty good but I want it to be better.

Yeah. Shit happens I guess is my philosophy. The Rheumatiz is pretty bad, but there are far worse things. I try to keep a good sense of humor about it, which is pretty important.

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