Snap, Crackle, Pop!

That’s not cereal your listening to, that’s my joints.

It’s a bad day for RA (rheumatoid arthritis). And a bad day means that opening the silverware drawer is a two-handed, put-your-strength-into-it challenge, facing a pineapple can with a pop-top feels like scaling Mt. Everest and doing origami at the same time, and changing a diaper escalates from a five-minute chore to a 12-minute marathon, assuming my client doesn’t make any last second adjustments. It is a day where I am constantly frustrated with my limitations, and where my children are perplexed by my pleas to be patient and requests to wait while I re-master twisting off a cap and pouring an apple juice with two hands. I move slowly and a bit sadly, everything cracks and resists my most simple of intentions.

I would feel a bit better if I slept last night, but it flared up around 4pm and I wasn’t able to rest with the burning and swelling. I can’t exactly describe the pain, but I feel confident everyone is familiar with it. The trouble for me is that is comes in such a tidal wave over my entire being that I can’t make sense of it. This is where the exhaustion set in. If only I could sleep or take a deep breath, even a shallow breath cracks my spine, I am so darned creaky and swollen.

Well, it’s nut, you know…one day you are just fine and the next thing you know you can’t clip your bra. Fine, if you are a teenager with those perky ones, not so fine, if you are a middle-aged woman breastfeeding your second child of eight-months.

So, I am too tired and achingly sore to write and type at the moment. I will update you on “Montessori Impossible” soon. We visited another school yesterday. And finished another day at The House of the Rising Anxiety today. There is so much to share, but I have to rest.

Okay, big sigh…deep breath and a moment of silence for our ever-evolving appreciation of our own humanity.