Time

Things are so massively different for me. I am a different person than I was 7 months ago, before RA raised it's ugly deformed massive fire-breathing head. It may as well be a a dragon. It feels like a dragon. 
I look at things so differently. What I worried about pre-RA doesn't matter. People that I struggled to forgive for things done to me have vanished. I prayed to forgive each one, and each one is barely even a memory now. 
There are so many things I wish I had spent time doing rather than what I picked...more time with people and less time studying all these years. I loved the learning, but when it would have been easier to be active, I wish I had taken advantage of that. 

Today is a good day. My pain is under control so far, and I managed to go outside. I am exhausted now, because I am not used to doing things. I so desperately want to do something, anything. I try. And then I feel so terrible I melt onto a chair...and then, if I do not go lay down, I melt in the chair until people ask me what is wrong with me. 
I want to walk without limping, gauging the distance and effort and whether my knees will buckle under me...and how to ignore the bulge of my knees as the bursae on each knee push up and out of my kneecaps, making it difficult to bend my knees. 
I want to be able to write without holding my pen in bizarre positions to try and make the pain less. I want to breathe normally. I want to not have all day stiffness that comes in the form of feeling like I have ten pounds in each joint from swelling. I want to not spend an hour at night moving my hands and feet onto different points of the bed because they are so hot from inflammation the blankets are already hot in two minutes. I want to be able to sleep in a bed, not a couch. I want to be able to train my dog daily, not every two weeks when I have a "good" day.I want to be able to drive a car.

This probably sounds like whining...but what is strange, I am not writing it with that "tone" in my head. It is more trying to show what life is like now. How quickly it can change with this disease. How I just woke up this way. So, no, I am not whining, but giving a glimpse into what I feel. 

Medical professionals in many many instances say "get used to it". Hundreds of people in my support group have stated things which their providers, friends, spouses. I hate that. Never tell anyone that. I just laughed: I have not had a baby, but I imagine telling a laboring mama to "just get used to it" would go over well. Ha! 
Much like labor...RA changes daily. Hourly. It changes too much to get "used to". If it stayed in one level, it would be easier to get used to. Ah, well...I digress. 

Today is a GOOD day. I am enjoying that. Immensely. I used to sob on good days, because there is only a matter of time before I am sick again. It could be in an hour. I have no idea. But I am happy and thankful to God for RIGHT NOW. That RIGHT NOW is good, pain is controlled, nausea is gone, I am comfortable. I can read a book, do art therapy, sit outside in the sun (which I am going to do when I finish chattering like angry squirrel). Right now is good. And that is what matters. Right now. Not yesterday, not five minutes ago, not ten minutes from now. Just now. 
Blessings to you...and I'm going to sit in the sun with my soul singing.