flaring – and taking a sick week now.

Well, y’all, it’s time for us to have a middle of the night chat while I listen to The Family Stone and drink my hot chocolate (and, of course, I’m wearing my best tacky Christmas cardigan too).

First, as a follow-up to last post, I saw this, about the physical changes that come with Rheumatoid Arthritis and it was so familiar:

20 Signs of Rheumatoid Arthritis in the Mirror

I have experienced almost all of these and I imagine this is just part of my life now.

Anyway, this morning, we attended the funeral of a dear friend’s mother and then Sara and I drove to Cullman for our sweet Harleigh’s 1st Birthday Party this afternoon.

I had already been having some pretty gnarly pain and joint stiffness and weakness and today’s activities called for a large quantity of prednisone.

By the time I got home tonight though, my joints were done, I was running a fever I have NOT been able to get under control, and I realized I’m in a worse kind of flare than I’ve experienced before.

Right now, both of my ankles (the left is worse) are extremely painful and tender and weak, my knees and hips are miserable and stiff, my spine is hurting and burning, and my wrists are constantly painful with some stabbing pains shooting through them and my fingers as well. I’m also feverish, weak, and exhausted.

This is apart from the broken bone issues.

Needless to say, my body has had enough these past few weeks. Also, in the past few days, I’ve had a few scary times when I could barely walk. It’s not good.

Life has just been really full and I haven’t been getting enough (really any) down time and my stress level has been terrible.

And, while this flare may have been coming anyway, those things certainly don’t help.

So, I looked over my planner for next week and, thank God, we don’t have any appointments scheduled, allowing me to spend the week healing at home.

I decided (or rather my body did) that I will, after I hobble to church this morning (I hope – it’s iffy right now), be staying in bed, studying, reading, and Netflix-ing for the next several days.

And I’ve been looking over all of my current treatment plan to see if I need to make any adjustments and I’ve acknowledged that it’s time to start using a cane with chair daily. I realized that was going to have to happen for sure this morning after walking out to the graveside service and then standing for an hour. My body says no to that sort of thing these days.

This feels both like the right thing to do and like surrendering to my disease process at the same time so it stinks but sometimes we have to do things we don’t want to do.

In my quiet time today/tonight, one of the passages was Hebrews 11:1-11:

Now faith is the reality of what is hoped for, the proof of what is not seen. – Hebrews 11:1

I know that God is in control of this situation, and, while He does not cause suffering and illness, He can and will use this somehow for good.

I will trust Him even when this is painful and scary and I don’t understand it.

Even so, He is still good.