So I have to get ready, no one is awake so I can't wear a bra so I slip my nightgown off and slip a dress on, the only difference is the print really. I slid into some sandals, and I'm ready, I can't brush my teeth or hair, so I usually keep my hair in a knot until either my hands can take a bushing or someone comes to help me wash my hair and brushes it out. So, I'm ready to go, I battle with the key and the ignition and get the car going and drive with a great deal of pain with my fingers extended. I get into the store and think that since I haven't been up in a while I should get the exercise and walk instead of riding the cart. This is a choice I always regret. I head to the fruits and veggies and I'm already in pain, and by the time I'm to the milk I'm shopping silently with tears running down my face. I try not to look up or make eye contact with anyone realizing that my hobbling around is probably attracting attention on it's own. I get to the one spot in the store that is kind of a cul-de-sac and my mom calls right then. Immediately she wants to know whats wrong, I tell her I'm in the grocery store and it's too hard, it's too hard to pick up the food, to reach, to bend, that I can't hold onto things and I'm dropping them and then I have to leave it because I can't get things off the floor. This entire trip has been a disaster and all I have are some sandwich things and cottage cheese. Cooking is out of the question now and this shopping trip is starting to feel like a real hard slap of reality in the face. So, I'm hiding in the ethnic section and here comes a man looking for something who keeps staring at me, crying on the phone, bent over, my hair chooses right then to fall out of the knot I wasn't quite able to make that day. The man gets something and leaves me alone again with my mom on the phone. I hate her catching me like this because it makes her so sad. She says things like "if I could take it for you I would" but the truth is she is already battling multiple autoimmune diseases just like I am.
I get home and ask my husband and son to bring the food in and put it away, both had worked the night before but there is no way I can do it. I go downstairs and struggle back into my nightgown and into bed, tears rolling, hungry but in now shape to fix a bowl of cottage cheese and fruit on my own and I don't want to ask either of them to do it for me. So I go back to a restless sleep until early evening. By then the house is empty so I take another handful of pills, go upstairs and get a glass of water, let the dog out and wrestle the cottage cheese container open. I have multiple projects I'm supposed to be working on but this is not a day to work, these days it's best to just stick to myself and not work with a cluttered mind and make mistakes. So, another day of pain and almost complete isolation. I literally have about 10 minutes total, if that much of conversation between myself and others in the world, anything else is over the internet. People don't like to talk to others when they are in obvious pain or sick, it makes them sad if they care about the person, so a lot of times they avoid the one in pain. It happens to me a great deal.Another thing is I've lost a great many "friends". I can't drink, I can't go to gigs, I can't smoke cannabis, I'm out of the loop. It isn't that I'm focused on my disease, I have plenty to talk about, I'm just not fun enough I suppose. One person that I know had a real problem with my disease, she was always saying she has it too but that she "didn't have time to go to the Dr". Honey, if you have active RA NOTHING would stop you from going, trust me. When I found out about my neck she was angry and demanded to see my papers from the Dr. and of course I refused, that is so rude it's just incomprehensible. In any case, we are... no longer in touch.
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