Hey there my Lovelies! As another work week draws to a close I breathe a sigh of relief and of disappointment. This week has held pain and upset that has shaken me and nearly broken my will. Yet here I am, fingers flying across my ergonomic keyboard still here.

So I went to one of my routine 3 month follow-ups with my Rheumatologist on this past Tuesday and since she saw me last I had been hospitalized due to my chronic asthma and a subsequent lung infection. True the infection took more than a month to get over and I felt like something I had pulled off the bottom of my shoe but I was still standing. Upon hearing this, she promptly and unceremoniously said that she couldn’t treat me anymore; that her medicine/treatment had nearly killed me twice (I think she was being a bit overly dramatic but then again… it isn’t like she was lying I was REALLY sick) and that I would have to wait until medicine could catch up with as complex of a case as I am.  I sat there looking stone faced at the person who had been with me for nearly 10 years, defeated, warm salty tears spilling down my face in rapid succession. For a moment I felt what it is truly like to have no hope, to have the very breath sucked from you and the world pressing in to the point of crushing me. She said that she knew that I would hate her for doing what she was and that she wished that there was something, anything that she could do. I blinked at her in disbelief and hurt as my voice caught in my throat and I struggled to breathe. She said that arthritis wouldn’t kill me, that I could manage an ok quality of life with pain management, homeopathic remedies and joint replacements for my hip and knee. This is where I got mad and said that “ok” wasn’t good enough, that living in the type and intensity of pain that I am in is not living. I REFUSE to have joint replacement at 30, I REFUSE to be relegated to a life of crippling disability, giving up on all those things that I used to be. I said quite frankly, with authority and the force of 14 years without a pain-free day, that although RA wouldn’t kill me, having no treatment at all was the equivalent of dying a slow, painful spiritual death. Which is worse?

I left the office with my head bowed, walking into the triple-digit heat of a late muggy Houston afternoon, got into my car and screamed out in frustration, pain and despair. What else could I do? What could anyone say that would console my battered and bruised spirit? Fast forward to Thursday and I have emerged from 2 1/2 days of depression, uncontrollable sobbing and self-pity. I’m still a bit down and truthfully crying as I write this; Kleenex littering my desk, tears leaving stains on my keyboard and I wipe not one of them away. I let the pain leak out one teardrop at a time because for every one that falls, it takes with it a little bit of angst and worry; each tear that slides from these red-rimmed brown eyes holds the fear of what may be and makes room for my faith, which cannot flourish where hopelessness resides.

I find solace in knowing that although I am bent and bowed, tired and discouraged, I am not broken. My faith gives me the flexibility to face the adverse and detrimental forces of life and allows me to sustain my sanity and dignity while doing so. I have emerged accepting my life for what it is at this very moment. I don’t have the answers to the questions of, “What do I do now?”, “Where do I go from here?”, “What does this mean for my quality of life?”, “How will I cope when it all gets to be too much?”. I must have faith that God wouldn’t allow all of this pain and destruction to occur if He didn’t have a purpose for my life. So my Lovelies, I write this for those who face insurmountable odds, for those who think to themselves that no one on this earth could possibly understand what it is like to not be able to put your feet on the floor in the morning, what it’s like not to be able to open a bottle of water some days or what it’s like to have to recognize your limitations. I get it, I live it every day. Some days are better than others and some worse that I can possibly remember. Nonetheless I am here. So with that and the courage of my convictions I have an appointment with another physician in October who originally diagnosed my immunodeficiency. And in the meantime I will persevere, I will cry from time to time in frustration but I will emerge stronger than before. I have an awesome support system and with them I can face today, tomorrow and the day after and the day after that!! 🙂

This song rings in my spirit and gives me strength to face any and everything. I pray it blesses you as it has me.

Happiness & Blessings Now and Always

T. Nicole