..and back up

I've been feeling much much more positive the last couple of days. I don't know what happened last weekend, some sort of meltdown. I guess that's ok. I'd had a hard week last week, we had a big photo shoot happening at work Thursday/Friday and that took most of my energy to organise and carry out. Maybe I'd just had enough by the time the weekend came around, both in body and spirit. I always think that it's ok to have little wobbles, as long as you don't stay down for too long. So I am up again and ready to move forward. Currently enjoying a rare peaceful evening on my own in the flat, tucking into a jar of Nutella. Dangerous!! Flare-wise, my feet feel much better and haven't hurt for a few days. My hand is still a bit swollen, but it's much better than it was at the weekend. I'm going to wait and see how the rest of the week goes, I have hope that with my renewed positive and stress-free attitude things will improve. I am getting my final vaccine for Peru tomorrow - yellow fever! It's a live vaccine so maybe my immune system will busy itself with creating anti-bodies and leave my joints alone. Hope you all have a restful happy weekend!

Bah

I need to get out of this funk. I'm starting to feel really flat and teary, just wanting to stay in bed on days off. Generally moping and feeling sad. My hand and feet are still playing up. I'm not sure if it's worth calling my rheumatologist for a steroid injection into the finger joint. Maybe next week, see how it goes. Maybe things will turn around on their own. Blah blah blah blah. I'm so sick of this. I really thought I was better, but I guess there is no such thing with RA. Sorry to be so negative, I think I just need to rant. I haven't really spoken to anyone about how I'm feeling just now, because I have been so well for ages and ages and I don't want to drag people down with my problems again. Thing is, I have a new girlfriend.. well, not that new. Almost 5 months now. And I really should tell her what I'm going through (she knows I have RA but doesn't really know the ins and outs of it). Again though, I hate dragging people down with my stuff and I know if I start talking about it the tears will come flowing out. I'm not sure 5 months is long enough to burden someone with this heavy stuff.

Limbo land

I've had a tough week, emotionally. I'm still in a kind of no man's land, not quite flaring and not quite back to normal. As much as I hate to admit it, I have let myself get overwhelmed by feelings of frustration and negativity. I've found myself moping around the house, feeling sorry for myself and my lot in life. Pathetic really, since I'm not suffering that badly physically and even on my own very mild scale of rheumatoid arthritis this is hardly anything to panic about. I'm not seeing any particular signs that this increase in symptoms could get out of control. So I am slightly ashamed of myself and my reaction, but in order to move on I must accept it as something natural and human and something which I can work through. Fear is my biggest enemy and I have to learn to face it head on. During my first ever flare in 2009 I spiralled into a 3 month long depression mostly brought on by fear. I cannot and will not go there again, no matter what happens. Sometimes when things are getting on top of me, I think that I am weak. That I have nothing to complain about, because even in full flare mode I can still go about my daily life without too much pain or restrictions. I think that I am fortunate and feel guilty for feeling so down and depressed. Then I have to remind myself that I have the right to feel down, that RA is a horrible thing to live with no matter what the severity. It's the fear and the disease who are the enemy, not myself or my human emotions. It's ok to be down sometimes, but I have to learn to control my fears about the future before they become more debilitating than my actual symptoms. At the end of the day, a weekend spent moping around the house because you're depressed that something terrible may or may not happen is just letting the disease win. So I got up, dusted myself off and left my house and my fear behind today. And I feel so much better.