Day 157: RFA

Things I am SO over: feeling shit, blood tests, steroid injections in my bum, RFA.

(I am sure you can probably work out what the ‘F’ stands for. I’ll give you a clue, it’s not fabulous.)

This week I was lucky enough to have a rare morning off from the hospital. So I spent it... back at the hospital. My clinic appointments seem to come round way too quickly at the moment. But this one couldn’t have come a minute too soon as over the weekend my painful shoulder turned into a full blown arm flare, which also meant I was feeling like shit. When you have RFA a rheumatology clinic waiting room is probably one of the most depressing places in the world – everywhere I look are reminders of what I was like, what I am like, and what I might end up like in the future. As if I don’t have enough constant reminders of my disease on a daily basis already. Since the pain was in several different joints there was no point in injecting them individually so instead I was given a nice big injection of steroid into my bum. It hurt. A lot. But I’m already feeling the effects so it was definitely worth it, even if I did spend the rest of the day walking like a total spaz.

On a day to day basis I am pretty damn good at coping with my condition, and living with the reality that I will have to deal with this for the rest of my life. I try not to think about the future, as if I did it would be hard not to feel depressed. However hospital appointments tend to make this harder to do. Every time I realise how fed up I am of blood tests, injections, xrays, swollen joint counts, examinations... in fact I realise how fed up I am of RFA. And I realise that this will continue for the rest of my life.

Jeez, I have just re-read this - maybe I should consider changing my name to Moaning Myrtle. It's ok though, I headed straight to the bakery and bought myself some doughnuts and promptly manned up and stopped feeling sorry for myself, so you can put those pity eyes away. 

Love,

Cat x