ROOM TO MOVE ABOUT?

Freedom bound disease.

Arthritis, a disease with a broad range of chronic disorders characterized by idiopathic origins affecting primarily the joint has a huge impact on one's life. For example, the case of an 85-year-old married woman, who used to be outgoing in her early 40, has had an unexpected turnover in her life after diagnosing with rheumatoid arthritis. For the past 40 years, she had struggled to cope with the changes in her life. Although the disease had been with her for almost 4 decades, she is still adjusting.

Her life began to take its toll when she noticed redness on both her hands followed by the stiffness of the joints in the morning prior to the rheumatoid arthritis diagnosis. The lost of her gripping power was the first physical limitation manifested and it progressively became worst when her arms were too painful to lift up. In addition to that, failure to move her fingers intricately compromised her favorite job of sewing. Consequently, she quit not only the job but also her hobby of teaching people to sew. After a few years downing with the burden, restriction of walking distance started to build up as swelling on her knee joints made her tender on getting from one place to another even in the vicinity of her room. From squatting to sitting in the toilet and walking to sitting more often had been slowly replacing her normal daily routine. Besides, sometimes imbalance came out of nowhere and it was hard for her to make a turn.

Having all these functional physical loss, she withdrew from the active participation such as letting go of her post in women's institution and absent for any of the launched organization. A drastic change swept through her social life from once being an extrovert to an introvert state. Fortunately, she had two supportive and caring sons living with her. In terms of her marriage, it was not fruitful as her husband passed away a few years after she came down with the arthritis but she inherited a big fortune from the husband's will. As a result, her financial wise was not an obstacle to her living although she was unemployed.

As the disease progressed, the rheumatic nodules deposition on the elbow and joints between the phalanges became more apparent. She claimed to have cosmetic problems in dressing herself up for any social events and found it emotionally hard being a "different" person. However, she did overcome the turmoil of accepting it with the assistance of the family members' support. In fact, the love from her children was enough to pull her strength back in dealing with the obstacles.

With the advancing of her diseased state, her dosage immune modulation medications advanced up as well. She experienced poor wound healing, easy bruising on her skin with just a minor scratch and dry eyes. As a part of the therapy regimen, she had had her blood withdrawn out every 4 weeks and it was dreadful getting needles mark on the arms.

After going through all these years, she was glad to have her sons to be there when she needs them. Finally, she hoped that one day someone would come out with a cure for rheumatoid arthritis to ease the sufferings of having it.

After all, it's a scary disease to have.