The Girl With Arthritis

When I was thirteen years old, my mum and I had a very steady weekend routine. Right after school on Friday, we would go to my doctor’s office where a nurse would give me an injection of methotrexate. It wasn’t a huge deal, but I began to dread Fridays because of the medicine’s side effects. A lot of people with autoimmune arthritis do very well on methotrexate and go into remission. But I didn’t. I remember the doctor often telling me that the medicine “had better start working soon, because [I] won’t like the next level.” It was horrifying to hear this as a kid. I knew it wasn’t my fault, yet I blamed myself. It felt hopeless; if the medicine that worked for everyone else failed me, what would that mean for me later on? But years later, I realized there was no reason to feel hopeless. I’ve seen many different doctors since, and I’ve found that there’s no one way to treat chronic pain. But the most successful approach I’ve found is to treat the person, not the disease. The outc...