“No-one Writes A Blog About Their Mild Symptoms”
I suppose this is finally the day that I’ve always been waiting for. I finally have a good enough illness to warrant writing that blog I’d always hoped to pen in my dark days. I’d hoped to offer people a profound helping hand in moments of hardship, peppered with a light touch of humour (which in my case always turns out to be darker than I’d realised). I had envisaged myself writing for a newspaper of note, consoling and cajoling from behind the mask of the written word, so far from the exposing and frankly often terrifying world of the performing arts.
But I’d never found that cause that would get me to the X Factor live shows or deserve a podcast about my fight back against the world and the hand it’s dealt me. Well, wait no longer, finally I have a diagnosis: rheumatoid arthritis.
Now I know what you’re thinking, this is an illness reserved for old people. But at the tender age of 30, I have marched straight to my fate and developed my symptoms well ahead of time. However, it’s not all doom and gloom, and this is perhaps where my premise for the blog falls down: it’s not too bad yet. My symptoms (although they did involve my housemate dressing me for a full week at the start of lockdown when my hands gave up the ghost temporarily) are not very extreme. And as my GP friend pointed out to me when I was horrifiedly reading some blogs online by people who are suffering with extreme effects of the illness, no-one writes a blog about their medium to mild symptoms. So I thought why not!? Let them know what life is like in the medium to slow lane (and fingers crossed it stays that way for a few years)…
Well life in the slow lane (so far) seems pretty manageable. In my year of dealing with the disease (all undiagnosed until today — ignorance is bliss) I’ve only dropped two cups of coffee, been dressed by my flatmate for maximum a week, and not been able to take the hand break off in my car once. It turns out you can actually make the car move with the hand break on which really is a blessing I had never appreciated before.
I had to get blood tests and X-rays last week and then had a slightly agonising wait while I self-diagnosed myself with everything under the sun. By the time it came to getting the results this afternoon, I was convinced I was a goner and was ready for anything. So when he said that all he could find in their extensive searches was that I did indeed have quite a high marker in my blood for rheumatoid arthritis and that I would be urgently referred to the hospital, I was delighted! I felt that thrill of passing a test with flying colours at school or finding a brilliant offer in the discount aisle at Morrisons. I couldn’t think of anything I wanted more than arthritis, especially when comparing it to everything I had dreamt up! Perhaps this is just the strange way that my brain works, but I always like to push myself to an extreme and have reality reign me back in again. I guess I find it a thrilling yet ultimately unsustainable way to live. I suppose that’s part of my propensity for drama that my family are always laughing about through gritted teeth. I think my mum has finally come to accept it in me but when I call her for the third day in a row from a crime scene that I just happen to cross on my walk home, I can’t help but feel her despair at my attraction to drama. (You could say I live in a dodgy area but really I know people who do the same walk as me most days and never encounter the crime scenes I do, so riddle me that…)
Which is why it’s strange that this diagnosis could be so without drama. And for now, my symptoms are manageable and only occasionally prevent me from pulling up my leggings on a bad day. In summary, I thought I would state my symptoms each time I write so I can watch my progress. In deciding to do this I had to look up the names of the parts of the hand where I discovered there’s such a thing as a “phalange”. I can’t explain how long I’ve just sat here on my own laughing at that word. Surely not?! Think that means something different in Scotland pal…
Anyway, now that I’ve got over that, here are today’s symptoms:
Right Hand
Index Finger MCP — fine
Index Finger PIP — wee bit stiff
Index finger DIP — can never feel that one anyway so I think it’s fine
Middle finger MCP — wee bit creaky
Middle finger DIP — weary
Middle finger DIP — fine
All other fingers — fine
Left Hand
Thumb — sore from lifting too many boxes
Index finger MCP — fine
Index Finger PIP — fine
Index Finger DIP — clicking
Middle finger MCP — stiff as if I’ve accidentally sat on it for 10 mins
Middle finger PIP — feels like it needs oiled
Middle finger DIP — fine
All other fingers — fine
All phalanges — tip top
