I could not have been more wrong...
I quickly learned that there were a lot of adjustments needed to keep myself able to function. I was alone. I have never felt so alone in my whole life.
My young kiddos would nap, and I would hop online to learn everything I could about this disease. I was clueless. My doctors told me the name of what I had, but nobody told me what it actually was or what it meant.
I still thought it was "just" arthritis, you know...the type your grandfather has in his hip or your mother has in her knees.
The loneliness grew stronger and stronger. Nobody understood my severe pain or what I was going through, not even my amazing husband. Shortly thereafter I discovered websites and blogs that taught me all about RA...what I had and what to expect. I met people who also had the same disease, and began to understand that my life was not returning back to its previous one. This was it.
Maybe this is you, too. Maybe you came here because you are newly diagnosed, are feeling lonely, or both.
You are the reason for this blog.
For the past fifteen years, I have wandered around, trying to find a new direction for my life. Then I realized it over the weekend: if I am going to suffer through this disease, I am going to share what I have learned the past fifteen years about it. I am going to make others' lives a bit more tolerable, a bit more optimistic, and a bit less lonely.
Thank you for joining me on my journey.
