What a Year!

It’s been over a year since I last posted. Partly, I’ve had nothing to say about RA because disease activity was mostly under control, and partly because I decided to pretend like I’m perfectly healthy. Living like an ostrich was fun – until it wasn’t.

Effects of Nutrition on RA

I continue to be fascinated by all the RA symptoms that could easily be attributed to vitamin deficiency – someday I’ll make a list. After merging a few different eating theories that seem to be well-supported by science, I created an eating plan and stuck to it. I felt better than I had in years, lost weight, and was in remission enough that I was able to stop all my meds. It worked!

Unfortunately, it took a lot of effort, and once I reached my goal, I stupidly went back to eating the way I used to – and after a year, I went back to weighing and feeling like I used to 😦 Now I’m back to eating carefully again and someday will share the tips I’m learning.

I’ve also found a Master’s in Nutrition program that I can do online, so am considering actually earning some credentials to back up and augment my informal reading.

I’m Moving to Texas!!!

Now that the kids are mostly through college, my husband has retired and we’ve been working on sorting through all the junk we’ve accumulated over the past couple decades, deciding what to move, what to donate to charity, and what to haul to the garbage dump. The movers should be here in a few weeks, and we hope to be fully moved by the end of September.

Finding a New Doctor

This needs to be its own post once I have some clue what I’m talking about. All I know at this point is that I need new doctors.

The situation is complex. My family physician of over 25 years retired in the middle of covid. I’d really hoped that he’d hang on a few more years but completely understand. So I need a new primary care doctor at a time that are are fewer than ever.

BUT we’re moving and I don’t want to do this twice. We have planned for a decade that once my husband retired, we would be relocating. Who would want to put the effort into establishing a new doctor-patient relationship when they’re moving in a year or two? Not me. So I’ve not seen a primary care doctor in a few years.

AND I also will need a new rheumatologist when we move. We’ve all heard horror stories about going to a new doctor who insists on doing completely new testing instead of trusting the previous doctor, and then claims that you don’t have RA – labs are normal, exams are normal because the meds are working! So I’m a bit apprehensive about 1) being able to get in to see a new doctor, and 2) getting appropriate care once I am able to get an appointment. Time will tell.

Sometimes Life Sucks

My computer died. Completely. So I lost a ton of stuff including access to my blog and two email accounts – thus I no longer get updates from all the blogs I follow. Everything else has been so complicated that it took forever to try to fix things. Today I finally got back into my blog. It will take a while to reconnect with people.

Last fall my niece’s one-year-old baby was murdered by the babysitter. This tragedy has been hard on everyone. The wheels of justice turn slowly. It certainly makes me think differently about serving on jury duty – which I got called for in the middle of covid. Tip: don’t eat onions for breakfast if you’ll have to wear a mask all day. I’m not trying to be flip or diminish what happened, but you just have to keep going because the thought that anyone could beat an innocent baby to death is too horrible to dwell on.

We also lost my mother-in-law this spring, and a month later my brother-in-law had a stroke. Apparently we’re getting old and will be facing things like this. It did serve as a wake-up call to my husband that there are lifestyle choices he should make while he still can. So he’s finally willing to eat more fish, and we also make time to go for walks together.

And not wanting to end with such a depressing section…

Bragging on My Kids

When I first was diagnosed and started this blog, my kids were still young. I managed to homeschool them despite all the ups and downs of learning to live with a chronic disease that nobody understands. The kids all grew up. Skip the next bit if you don’t want to hear me brag about my kids 🙂 But if you want reassurance that homeschoolers can grow up and go to college and live normal adult lives:

• The oldest graduated from college with an engineering degree and works as an engineer. He married a nurse (who was also homeschooled) and they now have three children. How am I old enough to be a grandmother?
• The second graduated from college with a nursing degree and psychology minor, and works as a psych nurse in a busy hospital. It’s an incredibly demanding job helping people who are really hurting.
• The third (the one with JIA who once told me that I could make her go to the doctor because she was a kid, but once she turned 18 she was never going again) sees our rheumy regularly, graduated from college, and works in a PT clinic while saving money for DPT school.
• The fourth graduated with two undergrad degrees: 1) accounting, and 2) kinesiology with a sports management emphasis. He then earned his MBA and is working as an accountant while taking the CPA exam series (one more test to go). He also played on the national champion Ultimate Frisbee team two years running. Last summer he got married to a brilliant biomedical engineering major who is now in grad school to be a prosthetist.
• The youngest is just beginning his senior year in college, majoring in business management. He’s spent two summers interning at a non-profit, and hopes to work with non-profits after graduation. He’s also planning to earn his MBA.

Back to Blogging

Once we get moved, I will try to get back to blogging. Our new house has a pool, so I’m looking forward to that nice, low-impact exercise that’s supposed to help my joints.

Hope you are well!