Day 165: What are you doing on 10th December 2012?

I genuinely got asked this today. 

I thought this was a joke at first, so I did my over-exaggerated fake-yet-very-convincing laugh, but nope, he was being serious. So I now already know what I'm doing on 10th December 2012 - I'm having my next bone juice treatment. It's a good job I'm a stationery whore and I bought my 2012 diary over a month ago. 

So this afternoon I had my first bone juice infusion. I have finally learnt how to say its actual real life name off by heart - it's called Zolendranic Acid. Personally I think 'bone juice' sounds a lot friendlier. So basically what happens is, they use a needle to stick a plastic tube called a cannula in a vein in my arm and then attach it to a drip filled with the Zolen...bone juice. And then I wait for it to make its way into my body. 

It's a good job I had my flatmate Alice with me because it's a pretty boring process. 

I also know what I'm doing on 4th and 18th January 2012 - having my second cycle of joint juice. Ok, it didn't last as long as I'd have liked, but all in all I think it's fair to say that round one was a pretty big success, and with my arm flare still in full swing round two couldn't come soon enough. 

Last week I was invited to speak at the ARUK All Staff Day in Loughborough. First Wigan, now Loughborough...such is the jet set life of an arthritis warrior. ARUK has teamed up with Great Ormond Street Hospital to set up an adolescent research project over the next five years focusing on adolescents with arthritis, and I am honoured to have been asked to chair a committee who will help to determine the issues vital to teenagers with various forms of the disease. Being a 'normal' teenager is hard enough. Being a  teenager with arthritis is a bitch. So I spent the morning telling the staff at ARUK my story and explaining why. And I'm going to keep telling my story until every single person in the country is RA educated.

Love,

Cat x