Living

I won’t deny that I love the Internet. I’ve been an avid website explorer, both for fun and for work, since the late 1990s. (Yes, I know how old that...

Many people with “invisible disabilities” have felt at one point or another that the severity of their condition is called into question. As it is possible to have severe rheumatoid...

On September 13, a 72-year-old disabled woman with multiple sclerosis lost her life in the California wildfire known as the Valley fire. She died because she was unable to leave...

This is without a doubt my absolute favorite time of year.  Yes, I actually do better RA wise once the days are a bit more crisp, the humidity has gone...

We’ve all been in those situations where someone shares with us that they have cancer, are in need of surgery, or have another serious health condition, and we’re left wondering...

I recently wrote about a terrible experience flying that resulted in my wheelchair being destroyed by the airline. Another part of this story concerned how I was treated by the...

"Ask and you shall receive" is a wonderful suggestion, but short of having a magic genie in our pockets, it is not true, for the most part.  However how I...

Everyone knows about hangovers, where one indulges in too much alcohol and then pays for it the next day in headaches and nausea. Those of us with rheumatoid arthritis are...

I confess: I love to dance. Always have. I am a dancing fool, a dancing queen. For as long as I can remember, I’d throw out my limbs in a...

When I was 28 years old, I started having a strange sort of pain in my chest. It felt like something sharp was jabbing into me, just to the right...

Tuesday morning I had a routine 6-month appointment with my rheumatologist. It seems that time flies between appointments and our main priority, besides seeing how my RA is doing, becomes...

Many eons ago, not long after my diagnosis of rheumatoid arthritis, I went to the library to learn all I could about it. Ever since I’d taken Lamaze training so...

There’s a lot more to rheumatoid disease than meets the eye. When I first started learning more about this disease about ten years ago, thanks to an increasingly useful Internet...

Long ago, on a pretty autumn morning, I woke with a miserably aching right jaw. My first thought was that I had a toothache--a terrible thought indeed because I’ve always...

I have structured my life around maintaining health insurance coverage. Diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis at age 22, my mother quickly impressed on me the importance of having health insurance. She...

I recently had an interesting experience that led to me reflecting on when and how do we extend ourselves to others suffering with RA. Are there some boundaries we need...

I wrote an article last year about our experience in rectifying a potential financial crisis caused by insurance uncertainty. Through diligent communication with the pharmaceutical company that provides co-pay assistance...

Living with rheumatoid arthritis can feel like a nightmare, which sometimes leads me to daydream about things that would make this journey a little easier. If I could have one...

Inspired by writer Kelly Mack's questions in a recent article:"I struggle with the question: how much do I share about my RA? How much can others handle? How much do...

We’ve all had those seminal moments – instances where everything after that point changes. Maybe it was that moment when you knew you wanted to get married – or divorced...