If you break a bone, or have a heart attack, or are sitting at a stop sign and get struck by a car that was travelling 60mph, it’s really nice to have timely access to a doctor. When you live a healthy lifestyle and are blessed with luck, you don’t need to think about doctors.
Before I was referred to a rheumatologist, I didn’t often think about doctors or access to health care. This pretty much sums up how I viewed the topic:
I recently made a comment on AF’s board that generated more private messages than I’ve received in quite a while. Thank you, all, for the support. I really appreciate it.
Since then, I’ve been thinking (believe it or not, that happens occasionally). What if people don’t want to see my A2HC references here, any more than I want to see the topic on AF’s board.
So… Is Access to Health Care an appropriate topic for this blog? Why do I write? What makes a good blog? What’s the purpose of this blog? Why am I blogging at 3 a.m., instead of sleeping?
Easy questions first:
Much as I would like to do some sewing for my daughters, I try to avoid noisy activities when the rest of the family is asleep. There aren’t too many things I can do that wouldn’t awaken people, so I sit at my computer and type. (Only someone without RA would ask why I, too, am not asleep.)
As readers of my blog, you’ll realize that I’m not necessarily qualified to write on the subject of what makes a good blog. Fortunately, two bloggers that I follow are, and have pretty good posts on this topic. Read here and here.
Which brings us to my real questions. The main topic of this blog is living with this *$%@& disease. I don’t really want to regurgitate medical facts that could be read elsewhere; there are links on my sidebar. My purpose is more of a, “how does this affect day-to-day life?” and “making the best of things, given a bad situation.”
Access to health care, unfortunately, is one aspect of living with rheumatoid arthritis. If you have RA, your life will be significantly better if you have healthcare. “Ignore it and it will go away,” works for minor sniffles. Home treatments work for nearly everything: washing cuts and keeping them clean so they can heal without getting infected, rest/liquids for colds, and acetaminophen/ibuprofen for headaches. Not so with RA. Ignoring RA, or relying exclusively on home treatments, doesn’t work. It leads to severe pain, deformity, the inability to walk, and a shortened lifespan.
When I started this post, I thought I would say that there would be no future posts about access to healthcare. But A2HC is crucial in dealing with RA, so there might be occasional posts on the topic. I’ll try to keep it focused, I’ll try to be balanced (not political), and I’ll try to remember to issue an ostrich alert.
∞ itis 
You know, I struggle with what to write about and reveal in my own blog. I guess I go mostly for the “journey” idea (or, as you put it, “living with this … disease”). One thing that I did decide is that I don’t / won’t post every day, because even though I deal with RA every day, it’s not my life. Another thing I’ve decided is that, even though this may “sound bad,” I don’t view education (of healthy folks) as a goal for me or my blog. I mean, if someone asks me about RA, I’ll certainly share my knowledge with them. But I’m not on a mission to educate others; I’m on a mission to live my life to the best of my ability and to share my RA living experiences with others who might find it to be helpful, supportive, etc.
I DO think A2HC is an important topic, and I have to say I admire you for your willingness to address it. It is so overwhelmingly large and unwieldy to me that I don’t think I’d even have the courage to try.
“I’m on a mission to live my life to the best of my ability and to share my RA living experiences with others who might find it to be helpful, supportive, etc.”
That’s a great reason for a blog, and I think you do a good job of it.
Sometimes I’m tempted to post multiple times a day; other times I could go months without posting. There’s an inverse relationship between post frequency and how I’m feeling. I don’t think it’s realistic to post daily over a long period of time. I know what you mean about RA not being your whole life. Thankfully, there’s lots more to life than dealing with disease. Consequently, that means I reveal more here than I sometimes intend to. I’ve contemplated combining this blog with my other one, but since the world of homeschoolers with RA is pretty small, I’ll probably keep them separate.