Living with chronic illnesses

In the coming weeks I started to feel a little better, at least mentally. I got it all off my chest with the family letter, and felt I was coping. There was a nagging doubt, however, because the way I was feeling physically wasn’t right. I was in pain in places that didn’t seem to fit my diagnosis of rheumatoid arthritis (RA); namely my upper arms and forearms, shins and thighs. I was also a bit confused and lacking concentration — often I would be mid-conversation with someone and suddenly forget what I was going to say. If my boys were playing and one of them accidentally banged into me, it hurt so much, and the pain took a long time to go away. Crazy right? Who knew babies could be so brutal! I stubbed my toe one time, which we all know can be painful, but this was something else. It was so bad I thought I’d broken my toe, and I couldn’t seem to get over the pain. Ha, ha, yes, I know I may be a drama queen but, joking aside, it started to worry me. And then there were two I mentione

Within the next few weeks, I had my first sessions with both occupational therapists and physiotherapists. For those who don’t know, occupational therapists work with people of all ages and look at your daily activities at home, school or workplace to see what you find difficult and if there's a better way you can do it. It’s a great help to me because there are certain tasks I find difficult to do, more so on flare up days but also generally. Small stuff to most people, like opening the lids of jars or tins, lifting or carrying shopping bags, picking my babies up etc., but they are big obstacles to me. As well as helping with the tasks I struggle with day to day, these sessions help so much with my mental health and general outlook. Physiotherapists similarly work with people of all ages with a wide range of health conditions. Physiotherapy aims to improve your physical activity while preventing further injuries. I benefit from this because there are techniques and workouts I ca