Back!

I've just returned from my trip to Peru! A bit battered and bruised but in one piece! Had a crazy 3 weeks, saw so many amazing places and had some very memorable experiences. I will do a longer post with photos soon. Day off work tomorrow, thankfully, then back to real life.. Oh it was also my birthday on Sunday there. So I'm now the grand old age of 26. I had a relaxing birthday in Peru, as it was the end of our holiday and we were pretty much wiped out, but I'm looking forward to catching up with my friends and family this week and celebrating properly.

NHS part 2

Just to follow on from yesterday's post, today I had a very positive experience with the NHS which once again makes me thankful for it. I feel a lot better but I'm still having issues with one of my finger joints and rang my doctor on Friday to see if I can maybe get it injected before I leave for Peru so that I am feeling 100% for my adventures. I rang at about 4pm and got her secretary. My doctor rang me back today and we had a chat and she said she is reluctant to inject the joint now as it is a fairly tricky one to inject and there's a (very rare) chance it could gets infected. I leave a week today so she didn't want me to end up in Peru with an infection, which is pretty sensible. But she asked me how I was feeling in general, and gave me an appointment on Friday just to 'have a chat and look at the joint' and to reassure me. I tried to say not to waste her time and that I'm sure it'll be fine, but she insisted I come in for a chat. I always feel like she's my second mum or something, she rings me up if I'm worried about something and talks to me about it personally. Maybe I've just lucked out, but it is really great to have such a caring doctor. And it's all for free.

NHS

I don't know how much some of you know about the UK health system, but basically the National Health Service means that everybody gets free healthcare, no exceptions. It has its downfalls, don't get me wrong. Some parts of the country are better than others, some areas have more funding and access to more drugs. The waiting lists can also be mind-boggling at times. However, the fact is I've had brilliant care by the NHS my whole life and have no reason to complain. I never have to worry that if I lose my job in the future I won't be able to afford treatment. In Scotland, we don't even have to pay a nominal charge for prescriptions. However, the coalition government that is in power just now (it's essentially a Conservative government) is trying to introduce a new Health and Social Care bill, which is proving to be very controversial. At the heart of it are two principles, giving GPs control of funding for services in their area and introducing more private competition within the NHS services. At the moment, NHS hospitals do outsource some services to the private sector but there is a cap which is very low. Under the new proposals, this cap would be raised to something like 49%. The government seem to think that greater competition for services will increase the overall quality of services for everyone. I'm no expert, but it kind of scares me that a hospital (which is currently low on space and has long waiting lists) would be able to offer almost half of its beds to private patients (probably Mr and Mrs Abbot-Smith paying for their cosmetic surgery or something). Critics of the bill say it's a stepping stone to privitasation of the NHS. The Tories do love to privatise everything, so it wouldn't surprise me if that is their long term goal. This is worrying to people such as myself who are chronically ill. As it stands, no private healthcare plan covers pre-existing health conditions. So who knows what would happen if people had to sign up for them. I also do not want the UK to have a two-tier system, with people who can afford to go private getting the best treatment and the NHS struggling to care for the poor, chronically ill and unemployed. As I said, I am no expert and all the criticisms could just be because people are afraid of change. We've had the NHS since the second world war and it's something we're very proud of. Hopefully it'll work out for the best, I guess only time will tell.

Back to normal

So the past couple of weeks I've been feeling back to normal. I think things have settled down on their own, so that's really good. Maybe it was all stress related because I've had so much on at work. Now that's passed and I can just focus on my holiday! Not long to go now, I leave on the 28th. Got all my vaccines, and most of the hotels and travel booked. Got a few more bits and bobs to book and a few more items to buy. So excited, this month is going to fly by. I've also got one of my best friends who I visited in Iceland coming over next week. She's great fun and I can't wait to have a few days with her. Overall things are definitely looking up. And I can feel Springtime in the air.

..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.