The Girl With Arthritis

A few weeks ago I was talking with a student nurse. Our conversation somewhat ended coldly, but not the way you would expect. You see, this person happened to say, "I mean, it's just arthritis." I kind of smirked, gave a small laugh and said "You're lucky you said that to me and not a patient: I know what you meant, but a patient would think you just completely dismissed their pain." As I gave her the heads up, she proceeded to obviously lose attention and began to text and laugh at a message, not acknowledging I had spoken at all. I get it. Nursing is an extremely difficult career. Believe when I say I understand- not completely, of course, since I'm not a nurse- but I see a lot of things they put up with and lots of great things they do enough to see the passion behind it. I'm in hospitals enough to be reminded of this constantly. And I understand that there will be one patient with a slight fever who insists they are extremely ill and in agon...

In this post, I talk about a very hard time after I was diagnosed with arthritis. I share this because I think it's important for others to know that this is a hard disease. For the longest time I felt weak and that I was the only one weak enough to feel this way. But I know now that that is far from the truth: Many people feel this way and it's because they are strong. I know I'm not the first when I say 'I don't want to be alone in this disease.' I don't think anyone has ever said, 'I want to fight this alone,' and actually meant it. It's an ongoing thing that never seems to end, with surprises at every corner. I couldn't go on if it weren't for the wonderful people behind me. I know that for a fact because there was a point when I had almost no one. I did it almost alone for a long time. I had my mum, and she had me. Even then, sometimes there was a wall of fatigue between us. I was newly diagnosed and was taking methotrexate. It ...

I'm obviously not a young teenager. However, I once was. And I was a young teenager with arthritis too. That was not a fun time at all. Not only was my body going through all those awkward phases, but I had to deal with arthritis, medicines, side effects and a lot of emotional pain from all that. It's hard to forget life back then. Recently I've thought about that time. And I'm willing to share some of it in the form of confessions. And now I present Confessions of a (Young) Teenager with Arthritis. 1. My mood swings were both hormones and medicine. It's not well known that many medications can cause mood changes in people. Thus it's not surprise that I was very moody. Whilst it doesn't happen to everyone, it happened to me. Fridays were my Methotrexate days and the rest of the weekend could be miserable at times. It was very bad at times, so much so I said a lot of things I still regret. 2. I felt alienated from my peers. Okay, I never exactly fit in wi...