You Mean I Need to Get to Class?

I had a plan for this semester, I was going to do well in all my classes and actually manage to get to all of them. This year would not be a repeat of senior year where I missed more school than possibly all the other years of my life combined. Yet I am just making it under the limit for allowed absences in most of my classes and I have had to get extensions on assignments. Thankfully all my professors have been very understanding. I think maybe I should have gone to disabilities services to get accommodations, but as my rheumatologist wanted me to be I was determined to make it to class even while flaring. I did just that, I even went when I had a normal person cold!

So had did I get to this point, where I am hanging on by a thread? Chronic illness doesn't allow for one to plan ahead, even when determined. I generally have two rules when it comes to missing class, I have to be in the hospital or unable to walk, sometimes both. So between a few last minute doctor appointments and ER visit and an upcoming endoscope I am barely getting by.

College with a chronic illness is clearly different than without one. I see my friends go out and stay up into the wee hours of the night, and thats just not something I can do if I want to be able to function. SO while everyone else is drinking and going to frat party I generally stay in and catch up on work, and on rare occasions I might bake. I do go out to the city sometimes but most days I have to nap just to make it through all my classes since I am still running sans coffee. Thankfully my head is still above water even if it is just barely, but the end of the semester is in sight.

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The Swollen Wrist

This morning I woke up to a red painful swollen wrist. My right wrist was not happy or useable for the better part of the morning. Of course my mom wanted to make a rheumatologist appointment for this week but I really did not think it is worth it. Since I am now in the 2 week period before my hip surgery I can not take anything but Tylenol anyway (no voltaren or fancy cream), so there is not a whole lot that can be done. We finally settled on me going to my GP (for the 2nd time in one week as I had a pre-op appointment with him on Monday), and I took a picture so I can show my rheumy at my next appointment. I managed to get an appointment at 11AM because my GP was in the office this Saturday. By the time of the appointment my wrist looked pretty normal, although I had the picture so he could see something was up. He had it x-rayed just to rule out any issues non rheumatology related, and as we both guessed the x-rays came out normal. My Lovely Wrist this Morning I was left wit

The Perfect Body?

Today I am going to write about a taboo subject- body image, and how living with chronic illness/pain has affected it. I get told how great my body is a lot, I am tall and fairly skinny. Not to be egotistic but I look pretty good in a bikini. I should love how I look. I should be confident of my body, after all I just bought a pair of size 2 jeans. Yet I still struggle with loving my body. My New Jeans! In middle school I thought my legs were fat, that was when I had muscles from horseback riding, today I miss my muscular legs. My thighs tend to be two different sizes, the left one is almost always smaller. The reason for this is simple, my left quad has atrophied from months of limping and being on crutches when I was 15/16, at one point it was so bad my doctor measured it and the difference was a good 2 cm in circumference. Today they are almost the same size, and probably look the same to anyone else, but to me they still look different. If you haven't guessed it yet,

Spring Break!

Ok so my spring break may not of been the most exciting, as I think I spent more time at PT then anywhere else, but it was nice not to spend the entire time in bed because of pain. In fact my heat pad only came out like once, what is this craziness? PT has been going great since I stopped flaring! As of Wednesday I am doing every exercise I had to stop because of my knees during the flare, plus new exercise. I am finally done doing pillow squeezes and glute sets, I now have very few table exercises. As of next week I am down to only two PT appoints a week instead of three, which means I won't have to go before school anymore! I did do something besides PT this week, I went prom dress shopping! I found a gorgeous blue and white open back gown. I am not going to post a picture until after prom but I love it. It fit perfectly but if I gain an ounce it will be an issue or if my hips choose to swell prom night. I also have amazing shoe, they are silver stilettos and over 3 inches ta

Life with a Flare

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