~I am off Arava for a week or two to see if the increased joint pain, tightness in ribs, slight nausea in morning and swollen glands is from the drug or just a coincidence.

~I was walking into work with a gal yesterday morning. As we approached the steps she said, “Your knees are really bothering you today, aren’t they?” She started asking questions as the tears started building and I told her it was too early and too painful to talk about right then. She said she understood but just wanted to say, “You look GREAT.” I laughed and she said, “Maybe you can just stand there without moving looking great.” That made me laugh again.

~In six years I have never talked about my RA at work but since I am teaching in the mornings now, there is no way around it. By the time classes were over yesterday my body had loosened up a bit. So, when another teacher walked out with me and mentioned that it looked like I was having a bad day I was able to talk without crying. She had a million questions and stopped once and said, “I hope you don’t mind all the questions.” I didn’t. Actually, I liked that she had such good questions and she didn’t tie any advice to the questions. She just truly wanted to know the information.