Got My First Shout Out!

A fellow blogger, Rheumatoid Arthritis Guy, posted my blog address on his home page!  Thank you RA Guy! This is exciting!  For a while now I have been thinking I am writing this blog and only my friends and family are reading it.  I mean, it is great that anyone is reading it, but it would be nice if someone with RA would also read it. You know, someone who didn't love me already!

Not that I am a person who is a people pleaser because if you knew me, you would know that is not true.  As my family can attest.  But if you knew me you would also know that writing a blog is way out of my comfort zone.  I had RA for many years before I told anyone outside of my immediate family.  I would hide my pills and Medic Alert necklace.  At work I only told the President of the organization after swearing her to secrecy.  I didn't want anyone to know.  I didn't want anyone to treat me differently.  I wonder how many opportunities I missed to educate people by keeping my mouth shut. 

The absolute funniest part is the President I worked for was the first person who ever said to me "you don't look sick" one day when she was asking me how I was feeling with my RA.  And she was a nurse prior to being the organization's President.  I just goes to show you that even people educated in the medical field do not always understand RA. 

So what made me not want to tell people?  I guess was afraid of being treated like I was sick but as you can see from the President's reaction, I probably didn't have to worry about that!  I thought  I would miss opportunities because people would see me as "disabled" or "not as abled".  You know "don't give more work to Adrienne, she doesn't need more stress."  I didn't want to hear that.  I wanted to hear that I was being treated like everyone else.

The other reason I didn't always tell people is the reason people with other diseases don't tell people: they don't want to become the disease.  I didn't want to become "the girl with RA".  I didn't want all my conversations to be about RA.  I didn't want everyone to always ask, with that tone in their voice, "how are you?".  I know they mean well but RA is a long haul and I didn't want to always be reminded that I am ill.  For a while last year, I was going through a bad spell where the doctor's could not figure out what was wrong with me (turns out it was Crohn's) but for months I was quite ill.  I finally asked my family (I have a large family) to stop asking me how I feel or about being sick.  I could not hear any more about it.  All the phone calls asking me how I was feeling just kept reminding me that I was ill.  I also have the well meaning folks that try to diagnose my illnesses.  "My friend had XYZ so maybe you have that."  XYZ is never a hang nail or split ends!  It is always some horrible disease that I didn't want to think about.

With this blog, I have come out of the closet, so to speak.  I am laying it all out on the table.  I have RA (and all the other lovely autoimmune diseases) and I am no longer keeping my mouth shut.  I am here to educate and advocate.