The RA Fun Never Stops? Here We Go Again...

Well, here we are again, on the roller coaster.

Now, I know what you are thinking... "Who doesn’t love a roller coaster?" Well, I don’t. Real ones and emotional ones both – they are just not my cup of tea. Ironic, considering living with a chronic illness like rheumatoid arthritis is basically one big lifelong roller coaster, and I am at the precipice yet again. Just when I thought I was out... well, you know the rest.

Getting back into shape after surgery

As those of you who follow me know, I recently spent 6 months recovering from ankle surgery, and after almost a decade and a half of walking on the side of a deformed foot, it’s finally flat. So, feeling safe and buying a ton of pairs of new shoes, I went back into the world and started to try to get into shape.

I mean, I had 6 months of sitting-on-the-couch-eating-Door-Dash weight to shave off... and... I... mmmm, sorry... thinking about Shake Shack. Mmmmmm, Shake Shack....

I digress. The point is, I’m just starting to get back into shape and return to visit doctors I had long abandoned. That includes catching up on all the blood tests I put off. Well, I did just that, and lo and behold, something popped up. Here we go again.

A new RA roller coaster ride?

Apparently, the kidney numbers on my latest blood tests were high — high enough that they want to retest again in a few days. So now I am here, guzzling water every 2 hours and peeing like a fountain, hoping to get the number down by the end of the week. Why? Because I’m just not sure if I’m ready to go on another RA-induced roller coaster ride. I literally just got off the last one, and it’s exhausting.

Look, I’ll be the first to say that my rheumatologist, as much as I love him, can be overly cautious. He has freaked out about blood tests before that turned out to be nothing. Then again, he also has freaked out about blood tests before and they turned out to be... well, a little more than nothing. When it comes to kidneys, those are about the only organs I have left that are untouched by 40 years of this awful chronic illness. I like to picture them as healthy little bean-shaped balloons at the back of my... ummm, back.. I guess, and they remain in good working order no matter what I throw at them! Or so I thought.

I was just getting back to some semblance of normal

The thing is, I just don’t know if I have it in me to fight yet another battle so soon after the last one. The recovery from the ankle surgery and wearing the fixator for 4 months was tough – much tougher than I expected it to be, physically and, especially, mentally.

I’m only now just getting back to some semblance of my normal, happy-go-lucky self. It wasn’t life-threatening or anything, but it was still tough, and now, if my kidneys are starting to go downhill or something else, it is going to be another long and potentially life-altering fight. How many times do I have to get on this roller coaster? Can’t I opt out?

A kidney-shaped roller coaster

The answer is, of course, no, I cannot opt out. The truth of the matter is that it doesn’t matter what I want or if I’m ready for it – if it’s a thing, then I’m going to have to take the ride. No choice. I can’t just ignore potential kidney issues and hope it goes away without turning into anything serious.

I’m going to have to get on the Kidneysizer roller coaster – one that is not only shaped like a big kidney, but also has you shoot out of a urethra right at the end of the ride. (Someone please turn this into a real roller coaster.) Hopefully it ends with just a fun, but not really fun, short, week-long ride and not a rest-of-my-life-long drudge of a ride.

Either way, though, here I go again, and I have to muster up the mental and physical strength somehow.

We have to take the ride

This type of nonstop stress and unpredictability is the real killer that comes with chronic illness. Of course, the individual symptoms can be awful, but the fact that something can come up out of nowhere and that it seems to never ever stop is the thing that really drains the life right out of those of us who suffer with rheumatoid arthritis and chronic illness.

The worst part is that we have to take the ride whether we want to or not, when most times we just want to sit on the bench and enjoy a nice funnel cake. Talk soon.