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Yes we know we have our struggles and we also know there will be a few good days and for those we are so grateful and do not take them for granted.  Some sufferers have them more than others, they are the lucky/blessed ones.  We know what drive our lives these days because it is built around rheumatoid arthritis. By that I mean what our bodies will allow us to do from day-to-day is written by this disease.

Do we want it to dictate our lives? No, we surely do not.  And surely we do fight back with a vengeance because that is what we’ve learned to do.  So to make our days work, we almost have to plan ahead.  What does that mean!  We don’t do much the day before, we try to get to bed early or make sure we’re resting properly at night if that’s possible hoping that will make our next day/tomorrow better.  And then there is tomorrow. How does that go, it depends.  There’s a good possibility that we might get lucky and have a rare pain-free day.  That’s what we’re hoping and working hard for or should I say working less for. You see working too hard for us brings on that dreaded pain that we fear.

When we have a pain-free days we let our family know and all of our supporters know.  If our day isn’t a good one, we suffer with the pain and maybe reach out to others for input on what may help us to get a little bit of relief or just to vent so we don’t bother or worry our family.  Umm, this pattern we do wish we could break but that’s not so simple because finding the right solution is a work in progress.  It’s just something some of us may have to keep working on.  Those that have changes in their patterns for the best are the Blessed ones.  You may not hurt as much as others but you do understand those with the pain.

Living our lives around RA is how we have been forced to live so we have also been forced to change things, learn new things, adjust to things, explain things and expect things in order to face this struggle and look for a brighter way to help ourselves.  It has made us embrace the strength we sometimes don’t feel we have and look this disease squarely in the face and fight to not be broken even when we’re in our beds and can barely move.  I know I speak of fighting a lot with this disease but it is what it takes to survive in this road of life.

What we do know without a doubt, sooner or later we will get up and say to ourselves to this disease “you can’t hold me down forever”.  If we don’t we will not only be living our lives around rheumatoid arthritis but in it.  We cannot let is own us because if we do, it will take from us all that we know and all that we are.  Though the struggle is hard the fight has to be harder.

Be Blessed

photo: geralt/pixabay.com