No, Me and RA Are Not Friends
At the age of 19, this RA came into my life silently. The girl who liked to walk started to get tired easily after walking a few hundred meters. Wow... Then one day, I found that I couldn't walk because I was having extreme low back pain. Still I couldn't figure out what was happening to me. I couldn't even sit for 10mins. It was getting difficult for me to attend college. My attendance went down. I tried to make my professors understand my situation, but they laughed at me and didn't believe me.
My family was already going through financial hardships. And then my deteriorating health put more burden on my father. Doctors couldn't even figure out what was happening to me. In April 2013 one fine day, an orthopaedic doc figured it out and told me I have rheumatoid arthritis. Funny part is that I laughed by hearing this disease name. I am sorry RA - I laughed at you that time, I didn't know that you were going to hit me so bad. I somehow managed to pass my 4th semester.
Living with RA was like living in hell, everyday
More than 2 years of my graduation left. It was like living in hell everyday. I had no friends left, no one to accompany me for my routine check up or routine blood tests. I am still afraid of injections, that time I have no one whom I can hold. Oh yeah I forgot to mention I also had a boyfriend who didn't understand my pain, my frustrations, my struggle. Just left me all alone. I still remember, he once told me "Purnima, you got this disease because of your sins." That night I cried and cried and reviewed my whole life to know what sin had I committed. And I find none. Until today I couldn't forget pain given by him, which was more intense than RA pain.
I was good in my studies, but my grades went down and my rank got below average. More and more people went away from my life. I was emotionally so disturbed I lost my smile. People used to stay away from me because I always looked disturbed. By the way, although many years passed, I am still fighting like my other friends in this community.
Looking ahead to my future with RA
Now I am 25 with no job, no money, and no hope. Presently, I am trying to study for my dream job (to become a machine learning engineer or a data scientist). I feel so low, devastated, I don't know how to cheer myself up and study to get a job. Do you know why I am focusing so much on job? Because I learnt a big lesson few months ago that money is biggest factor if you wanna survive with RA.
This is just a small part of it all.
Whatever I wrote is just small part of my pain. I have no one to share my pain. My family also doesn't understand what challenges I face daily (both physically and emotionally). I tried to share but their reply broke me more. Thanks to this community to let me write my thoughts.
I don't feel like studying, or doing anything. I just wanna run away somewhere I can find peace. No motivation is left inside me. I don't know what is there tomorrow.
At the end, once again thanks to this community. And yes, I don't wanna be friends with RA. It took away everything from me.
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