One silly cold and a lot of pain

I used to be one of those people that could work through a cold, work with broken bones, work when I was unable to walk. Now a little cold makes me unable to walk, ok not completely but it sends my pain sky high and makes walking very hard.

This is not a bad cold, I'm congested in my head and that's about all so far. A cold mixed with an autoimmune disease though is completely different than just a little cold...in fact I don't get just a little anything anymore. 

What happens when you get sick is your immune system goes to work trying to fight off the virus or infection. With Rheumatoid Arthritis you immune system is wacky and attacks healthy tissue, joints, organs, even skin...it sees your body as a virus it must kill off. So for me when I get a little cold my immune system kicks up to full gear and attacks my tissue, joints, organs and skin. This puts me in a full flare.  

I can not get around well and need help with even the simplest things. Last night my husband had to help me walk to the bathroom, in the middle of the night, completely naked. It's a very short distance from our bed to our bathroom, but I couldn't even make that short distance. I had to wake him up to help me. 

There is even more fun to my little colds now, because I am on the chemos to fight the RA my little cold can now last anywhere from a week to a month, sometimes even longer. 

So this little cold is why I haven't been around much online. I have a wonderful friends wedding to attend tomorrow and this cold won't keep me from making it, being there for her special day is more important than my silly cold. 

Thank you again for stopping by. I hope everyone has a wonderful day. 

This was written on Friday Jan 31st but as I forgot to post you're all reading this a bit late. 

RA Gal is an acronym

I realized I never explained the meaning behind my name. There is the obvious I am a gal and I have RA, but it's actually an acronym.  My husband is a military man and the military loves acronyms. He came up with my amazing name. The Gal in RA gal is an acronym for gimp a long. Pretty cute right. I think it's a perfect fit. Thanks hubby as always you are amazing.

I hope you enjoyed that little tidbit of info :) 

As always thank you for taking the time to stop by my blog. 

Overly Active RA Day

 Unfortunately my bad days still seem to outnumber my good days. I still have faith in my new medication. I have noticed improved energy, which I am not sure if that's a good thing or not. More energy makes me want to do more, which my pain level doesn't agree with...it's a vicious cycle. I really wish I could learn where that fine line between getting things done and overdoing it, I think it's like the end of the rainbow.

There are definite stages to my bad times, I'll say times as I hardly ever just have a bad day. First stage is my emails pile up. The funny thing is I will still open them and look at them, but then I can't follow through with the action it requires ie replying or following it to a webpage to complete an action. I look and just keep marking them as unread.

I go through Facebook and want to comment on things but I only hit the like button, commenting is too hard, I worry if I'm making sense in the comment because I know my brain isn't clicking as well as it should. Even this gets to be too much, soon I won't even hit the like button. I know if people see me on Facebook I will get messages and I just don't have it in me to be able to answer a message. I don't want people to think I'm ignoring them so I just don't like anything. Soon it gets to where I don't even get on Facebook. 

I have little habits when my pain is bad. I always try to hide it from my family, but my husband is so observative he always catches onto them. I'll share a couple of my signs; I wiggle my legs first when the pain level starts hitting higher than my normal level. Then when the pain gets even higher I hum, I have caught myself humming in public before, it was a little embarrassing, I have no idea how long I had been doing it. When I hum it's not even a song really it's just a soft hum with no rhythm. 

I hope soon my good days will out number my bad again, I have so many things I want to do. I feel like my life is on hold, constantly waiting for a good day to come around, but more and more time keeps passing. 

I should think of better phrasing than bad day, maybe active RA days or in my case overly active RA days. In all honesty in my life I rarely have a bad day, everyday my husband, daughters and dogs make me smile,make me so proud, make me laugh etc etc. So really with such an amazing family there are no bad days. All in all my life is good, I just wish I had less overly active RA days. 

Thank you everyone for stopping by. Hope everyone is having a non flare day. 

Change of name

I am sure you have heard many people wish that there would be a name change away from Rheumatoid Arthritis. I admit it really is an unfortunate name as Arthritis is just one symptom in the disease. Many people believe the name should be changed to rheumatoid disease. The thinking behind this is by changing the name we will change how people view the disease. I don't think this is a bad idea, but I can't see putting all of my energy behind it either. 

I personally think the scientific name of a disease is not that easy to change if it's even allowed at all. I believe that there are too many medical books, journals, studies etc etc with the name rheumatoid arthritis on it to make it an easy change. I believe if it's allowed to be done that it will take many years to actually change over. 

I feel instead that we need to change the way people view the disease.  That disease being rheumatoid arthritis. If someone asks about it take the time to explain the disease. Let them know that there are over 300,000 children in the US alone who suffer from this. Let them know Rheumatoid Arthritis is not osteoarthritis it knows no age and it's a systemic autoimmune disease with no cure and the current treatments of today are chemo therapies. 

1,000 children younger than 15 years of age died from arthritis and other rheumatic conditions in the 20 years from 1979–1998 (average = 50 deaths / year) This is taken straight from the center for disease controls page. So let them know Rheumatoid Arthritis can be deadly. 

Let's be the change. Let's educate people, take the time to really educate them. Get the facts behind it. Practice a short response with a lot of facts to share when anyone asks you. You can use exactly what I just shared with you. 

Get the tshirt. Have you seen the great new shirts from the arthritis foundation? They are blue shirts with white writing that says "I am the face of arthritis" and guess what they come in kids sizes. We get enough of us out there at young ages and add kids into the mix wearing these shirts showing people what Rheumatoid Arthritis really is we will see changes. We will be the change. Get out there today and change one persons view of arthritis being an old persons disease! We can change their view, we can get noticed, bring the facts, and raise awareness to better educate people. I'm excited and ready! Are you? 

I thank you all again for coming to my blog. 

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