Waiting for Wednesday

When you have rheumatoid arthritis you spend a lot of time waiting. It seems you are always waiting to see if the latest DMARD (Disease Modifying Antirheumatic Drug) is going to work to control the disease. You wait in numerous doctors offices and labs. Most of all, you just wait to have your life back. RA CAN take your life.

I guess I haven't given up all hope in having my pre-RA life back. I still have hopes that I'll run more 10K races, play more bluegrass music, hike for miles, mow my own grass, wear rings and bracelets and cute shoes, ride half-crazy horses, restore old violins, sleep through the night and spring out of bed the next day . . . you know I could go on and on.

I pin hopes on every appointment with my rheumatologist. I have a lot of faith in him, but the visits are so short that I often come away wondering what I can expect from the changes he makes in my medication. RA waxes and wanes on its own, for me, even without treatment. So, it is awfully hard to tell if anything really makes a difference or not. I'm wanting the difference that cannot be mistaken. I want to feel like I did before I knew what RA was.

Right now my hopes are on Wednesday, my next rheumatologist appointment. I have hopes that this appointment will bring all the things I've been missing back to me. If it does, I promise not to take any of those things for granted. I know that remission usually doesn't last forever and you have to start the whole process over again when your treatment stops working. I'll take whatever I can get.

I haven't been feeling too bad today. I'm still fighting the sinus infection and I've had to rely on pain medication to manage, but I don't feel like chopping off any body parts. I'm living the usual life with rheumatoid arthritis, I'm waiting, for Wednesday.