If I Were You..

 

Here it comes! 

Here comes the unsolicited advice from someone who doesn't have the diagnosis, personal knowledge, professional knowledge, or any relevant lived experience. 

It starts with, "If I were you..."

Well, you aren't. 

You don't have a clue what this is like.

You haven't lived one day with every muscle fiber and joint space hurting.

You haven't lamented all the things you used to be able to do without pain.

You haven't calculated how much pain would be involved in walking across a room, riding in a car, or performing household chores.

Even if you have the same diagnostic label or insurance code, the odds are against your having the same presentation of Rheumatoid Arthritis as another person. 

58.5 million people in the United States have some form of arthritis.

1.3 million have a diagnosis of Rheumatoid Arthritis.

103 different genes, that researchers know of, cause Rheumatoid Arthritis.

That means there may be, there might be, 13,000 people in the United States that present with Rheumatoid Arthritis in the same way that I do. Maybe. Could be more. Could be fewer. No one really knows. 

If I were you, I would live on Advil. No, you wouldn't. Because Advil rarely touches the pain and inflammation. Ibuprofen will burn up the kidneys and leave the patient with even more complications that are life-shortening.

If I were you, I would travel all over the country finding a doctor that would be able to help. No, you wouldn't. Because the awful truth is that none of them have any better options than the one physician nearby. Also, who can afford that and don't you have things you need to do in addition to healing yourself?

If I were you, I would see a boutique physician. No you wouldn't. Because how devastating would it be to travel to the "boutique" and come away $5,000 poorer with the exact same diagnosis and medication regimen as I have had to date? 

If I were you, I would buy a ranch style house, all on one floor. Doubt it. Try to find one. Go ahead. I'll wait.

If I were you, I would try to find some peace with all of it. No, you wouldn't. You would be just as pissed off that constant pain has entered your life. You would have great difficulty making peace with such a disruptive illness too. 

If I were you, I would do what this OTHER PERSON DID. No, you wouldn't. Because that person is unlikely to have the same presentation of symptoms, the same severity, the same co-morbidities, the same side effects, and the same presentation and experiences as you.

If I were you, I wouldn't be as brave. No, I'm not brave. I didn't run toward this when everyone was running away from it. I'm not a firefighter, a soldier, a police officer, a foster parent, an emergency room nurse, or a crime scene cleaner. This happened to me. It wasn't my choice and I'm not brave for living every day with it.

Maybe each of us believes we would respond differently to certain hardships and maybe that is true. But external constraints remain. So, you don't really know how you will respond to the set of conditions and the constraints that surround them. 

None of us really knows for certain and you are certainly NOT me.