Friday 26 April 2013

You too..?!

Yesterday I had an unexpected/great conversation with a colleague of mine. She usually works in another of our offices but sometimes comes up here. I ran into her yesterday and noticed she had a walking stick. Now, normally I am not the type of person to pry but we were having a catch up and she mentioned that she'd had an operation. As I have known this girl for a few years and we are friendly, I asked what/why (already guessing it was a hip replacement) and it turns out she has RA. How strange when you find out people in your life you've known for years are fellow sufferers! We had a long chat about our conditions, her operation and general RA-banter. Hers presented quite differently to mine, in the form of adult-onset Stills (which sounds very very scary!) but now after 16 or so years just takes the form of regular RA. She is such a busy, hard working, hard partying gal and I have great respect for her knowing what she's dealt with and how much she has achieved. Hopefully after the hip has recovered from the op she will feel the benefits of better mobility so she can continue living her fab life. I'd like to think that if either of us ever needed support, we would now know that there is someone in 'real life' that can lend an understanding ear.

That's two people now at work that I know have auto-immune illnesses and are on anti-TNF. Both under 35 and both don't 'look sick'. Someone really needs to come up with cures for these things so that young people (and older too!) can just get on with their lives without all this rubbish!

Wednesday 17 April 2013

New readers

I sometimes completely forget that this blog is actually public - beyond my regular readers, I mean. I'm so surprised and humbled when I get a comment from somebody new who has somehow come across the blog and found something worthwhile here.

So to all the new folks - welcome and thanks for reading!

I have a full week off work, for the first time since I started working full time 4 years ago. It's BLISS!!!!!!! That makes it sounds like I haven't had a holiday at all, which isn't what I meant. I get 34 days off a year and I take time off very often, but it's always to do something. I'm very lucky and I travel a lot which means that my holidays tend to be very action packed. I do take the odd couple of days off to sit and chill but this time I have the ENTIRE week. I've felt quite fed up with work for the past wee while and decided to take a proper chunk of time to rest. I almost don't know what to do with myself. What did I do for years as a lazy student?! I think I was drunk all the time.

My birthday party was on Saturday and to be honest it took me until yesterday to fully recover. I had the flu last week as well which didn't help. My actual birthday was Monday and yesterday was spent cleaning my house so today is my first official 'got nothing to do' day. And there are 4 more after this! Woo hooooooooooo!

Unfortunately it's raining outside and the forecast tells me it will be raining tomorrow too. Thanks, Glasgow! I think I am going to clear out my wardrobe and then head out to town to prance in the rain.

This is a really rambling post, mostly because I HAVE TIME OFF AND NOTHING TO DO! YEeeeehah!

Monday 1 April 2013

Fingers fingers fingers..

Sigh.. one finger has turned into 3. Grumble grumble grumble. I blame this prolonged winter we've been having - we still have snow on the ground!! It's APRIL!!!! Go away!

It's my birthday in 2 weeks so it better be gone by then. After the last post I was going to ring the doctor but the swelling went down over that weekend so I didn't, only to return last week in 3 fingers (woop!) and now it's Easter holidays and no one's picking up the phone so hopefully I'll get hold of someone tomorrow. I hope they can fit me in this week! Need..my...steroid..fix!

I'm quite surprised at myself that I've been quite calm during this flare. I usually tend to get quite down when it 'comes back' but apart from a little meltdown that I had on Saturday, I've been pretty upbeat. I just need to remind myself to keep the negative thoughts at bay and not spiral into panic mode. When you take away the 'what if's' and only focus on the current physical problem it seems much easier to manage to stay positive.

In other news, my girlfriend has an appointment at the rheumatologist on the 24th, so I'll be going with her.

Also, I got a little pay rise today at work which was quite nice! I've also been working on my own website for my freelance photography and it's looking pretty good! I will share on here when it's done.

And finally - it's my birthday soon, as I already mentioned. I love my birthday! I'm such a child. This year I'm having an 'Under the Sea' fancy dress party. I'll be 27...