Today is World Arthritis Day.
It’s a day to raise awareness of how shitty types of arthritis are and what they can do.
Since 2007, I’ve gained 100 pounds due to my diseases, the treatments, the fatigue, and fun GI issues. I have gone from someone able to run miles at a time to someone whose knee attempts murder when going up the stairs. I’ve lost hair, gotten horrible life-threatening infections, had my liver freak out, and had to leave my day job. I had to completely change my life from dropping out of grad school a few years ago to eliminate stressful & harmful people from my life to changing what I eat to changing jobs.
Arthritis even took my best friend from me, literally making it so that her body couldn’t fight sepsis.
My relationship with Arthur is a love-hate one, though.
It’s given me a direction for my passion of helping others. It’s allowed me to go on trips and participate in amazing things I wouldn’t have without it. I’ve seen the best and worst of humanity in how we as a society address those with disabilities, infantilizing or demonizing them instead of helping them. It’s pushed me to become better, to participate in bigger things, to try to change the world for the better.
Most of all, it’s given me the most amazing friends and compadres I could ever ask for all around the globe.