Thank You, Disease

It started in the left side of my jaw. Strange pain that restricted how far my jaw could open. A few months later, sore feet. Both of them felt like I had been walking on them for days, even when I got up in the morning. Oftentimes I was forced to limp around. Then came the fingers. Slowly at first—just one, then two—until nearly every finger was painful and enflamed on a daily basis. For a while, the progression stopped. For about a year I developed no additional symptoms. Maybe it was a brief remission, or maybe my concoction of medicines played a role. But then it was the right side of my jaw. Same as the left: sore and restricting. A few months later, the wrists. My left wrist is by far the worst. It seems that any sudden movement or slight turn sends pain shooting up my forearm. Shortly afterward, my right elbow, then my right shoulder. Followed immediately by my right knee and left shoulder. Don’t forget, these are cumulative. One symptom does not replace another it just adds to it. The pain I am experiencing is causing more than just problems in my joints too. Compensation for the pain has caused a misalignment in my neck of more than two inches. The inverse curve of my neck puts stress on my spinal column, thus causing pain through the muscles in my neck, back and shoulders. It’s a muscular soreness and stiffness that has lasted for months and months with no signs of stopping.

So this is what my life boils down to? Widespread agony? I am always asking myself where it will end. I had that break for a year where it discontinued its spread. This of course was followed by an extremely aggressive 7 months that made victim half a dozen new major joints, and multiple muscle groups in addition to those my disease already took captive. When will it end? When every imaginable joint is a torture? It’s disheartening to dwell on these kinds of questions, but at the same time I can’t afford to ignore them. My disease will forever shape who I will become in the future, as well as the person that I am now. My disease can be a burden, or I can choose to let it bless me in a way I never knew something so negative could. I have no other option but to sit down, buckle up, and get ready for the ride of my life. Like it or not, this is the new normal.