Living

I grieve for myself. I should say, "my former self." I no longer grieve the event that caused the grief; that ship has sailed. Instead, I grieve my suffering. What...

There's an unusual interloper in my healthcare team that is surprisingly related to me having rheumatoid arthritis (RA): an ophthalmologist and optometrist. This might seem like a weird connection, but...

Walking is like medicine. We’ve all heard this before: the more we move, the more we support and protect and strengthen and condition our joints, the lower we keep our...

I keenly remember a time, especially early in the course of my rheumatoid arthritis (RA), when it hit me that I was feeling less than whole as a result of...

A study recently published in The Journal of Physiology sheds light on challenges experienced by rheumatoid arthritis (RA) patients when they exercise. Researchers studied physical responses to exercise (mean arterial...

A few weeks ago, I fell and broke my hip. It's not how I wanted to start the summer, especially after a year and a half of living confined during...

For a decade, I have been dealing with an ever-worsening right ankle that keeps curling further and further underneath. The saga has been going on for years now and it’s...

Yeah, those. The non-agonizing tweaks and twinges. The background knee-throb. The sudden, sharp jab that takes your breath as you pick up a dish to put it in the dishwasher?...

Author's note: I wrote this article as though I am describing a typical summer and not one amidst a global pandemic. I am recounting summers past since my current summer...

If you're heavy-set (overweight, obese, fat — whatever label you want to put on it or have been called before), you have likely heard the following statement from every single...

The dreaded fatigue. We all get it, we all hate it, and we all understand that it is part of living with rheumatoid arthritis. It can be present all the...

Staying hydrated is the key to a lot of things, like having healthy skin, experiencing easy digestion, enjoying lubricated joints, experiencing increased energy, utilizing easier movements, and maintaining adequate body...

The sun is shining, the sky is clear, and my joints are recovering from the winter scaries they experience with the cold weather. That means it’s time to get outside...

Something people don't talk about enough is how important the space that surrounds you impacts your mental and physical health. Having a comfortable, livable, and, most importantly, pain-free household is...

I usually find myself rolling my eyes at people when the simplest of niceties are not observed. I grew up learning manners mattered. You hold the door open for people...

I’ve never been a fashionista. I try to keep up the best I can with the latest ideas of what to wear, but sometimes I start to think the fashion...

While I like to pretend that I’m the boss of me, the reality is that I am definitely not. The rheumatoid arthritis is in charge. Whenever I start to forget...

Recently, I wrote about a day where I was just over it. I didn’t want to deal with another aspect of living with rheumatoid arthritis (RA), and I felt so...

I remember those days when I would just decide to head to the beach, without much planning. Then in my 20s, I was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and thought...

"Out of your comfort zone." We say this phrase all the time. It’s part of the American English vernacular that has withstood the test of time when describing doing something...