25 billion reasons why I don’t like Facebook

Everyone seems to be doing that inane “25 things you don’t know about me” meme on Facebook, and the annoying thing is that they’re tagging everyone on their “Friends” list to be “Included in this note.” I’ve been tagged about a dozen times now, and I’m not really sorry to admit that I haven’t read any of them. I love my friends, my real friends, my near and dear friends who are no longer so near and probably don’t consider me very dear because I’m not very good at the whole “being a good friend” thing, and I’d love to learn new things about them. I’m not exactly sure why it’s fun and entertaining to read about those things in list format, specifically a list of 25 things, but so it goes. I haven’t jumped on the bandwagon, mainly due to the fact I assume the reason people don’t know the 25 things on I’d put on my list is because they don’t want to know them. Or I don’t want them to know them.

(To be included on my list of 25 things if I ever make such a list: Multiple pronouns in the same sentence drive me crazy, especially when it sounds better to use them, but contextually it could possibly be confusing.)

I suppose the number one thing that would go on my list of 25 things you don’t know about me (“you” being some sort of mass personal pronoun meant to make everyone reading the list feel like they’re intimately involved with the person writing it) is that I have rheumatoid arthritis. I was diagnosed when I was 24 years old, but I became symptomatic when I was around 19. That means I spent five years having no idea why my body was seemed to be giving up, and my view on life changed a lot. When you think you’re going to be in a wheelchair before you’re 30, and you’re becoming so severely limited in how well your hands work at 21 that you’re pretty sure you’ll never be able to pick up a baby if you were to ever get around to having one, looking forward to the future isn’t as simple or as exciting as it should be.

There are a lot of things that are rolled up in my RA, things that don’t really need to be discussed right now, but the main thing is that I was diagnosed with a disease. A real, live disease, one that is permanent and debilitating. One that, if you’re lucky (and I am well aware of how extremely lucky I am), can be stabilized with medicine. Expensive medicine. Expensive medicine that has to be prescribed by expensive doctors, specialists, and has to be monitored through expensive things like frequent blood work and x-rays. I am lucky, I know I’m lucky, because my medicine was able to stop the progression of the disease and even reverse some of the damage that had already been done. I’m lucky because I have wonderful parents who have gone above and beyond to support me, keeping me on their insurance long after it was legal to do so, risking ridiculously large penalties if anyone ever does their research and sees that I’m not truly dependent, that my parents are really just beating the system so I’m not stuck on some crappy insurance plan with some enormous deductible (or, worse yet, student insurance) that doesn’t cover all the things that need to be covered for me to be healthy.

The thing about this disease, and the stuff needed to take care of me so I’m not being beat up by the disease, is that it has chained me down and forced me to make choices I would never have made if I was a healthy adult.

I wouldn’t have gone into the M.A.T. program. If for some strange reason I still did, I wouldn’t have stayed when I realized it wasn’t what I wanted.

(Even though this was prediagnosis and a long time ago) I would never have spent so much time with MS, hoping for him to decide he wanted to marry me, hoping I’d get a chance to start a family before I physically couldn’t.

I would never have decided it was so damn necessary to get married and have a family RIGHT NOW, which would have made most of the relationships in my life so much easier (both for my friends and my boyfriends).

I wouldn’t have come up with the crazy “I’ll get my M.A.T.!” plan, because it wouldn’t have mattered if I was on crappy student insurance (or no insurance at all).

I wouldn’t have pushed The Terrorist to make a commitment, to get engaged, because I wouldn’t have been adding up the years in my head and worrying about the time I wanted to spend married and settled before thinking about children.

(As a side note, something else in my list of 25 things you don’t know about me, I can’t just up and decide I’m ready to have kids. I have to carefully plan out the entire thing, because I take medicine I can’t take while pregnant, medicine I’ll have to have out of my system for a good bit of time before trying to get pregnant, and this is medicine that keeps me mobile and functioning. I also need to not only plan carefully for what is going to be going on in my life when I start that process, I have to make sure there’s money if I can’t work and good insurance that will be able to provide for the entire ordeal, like the good bit of draining gross fluid out of my knees I anticipate happening constantly. I have to make sure this goes into motion before I reach an age it could be difficult to get pregnant at, and an age where not taking the medicine could do worse and lasting damage to my body. Let’s not forget the added math if I might want to have more than one child, especially if I want to do something responsible and space them out appropriately.)

I wouldn’t worry that I’m moving too fast with the Goat. I probably wouldn’t be moving so fast, and therefore there’d be no worry. I wouldn’t keep thinking, “Oh my God, if he isn’t the one, I’m screwed.”

I would have up and quit when I realized nothing, absolutely nothing, about this student teaching experience is making me want to be a teacher.

I’d have submitted Ph.D. applications to try and get started in a program this coming fall.

I wouldn’t feel so guilty about saying all this or being upset by it, because I feel guilty about it all the time. There are so many people so much more worse off than I am, and they’re not as unhappy with their lives as I am. They aren’t letting their problems stop them.

I’d heal faster.

This is why I haven’t created a list of 25 things. They’d all be like this. And let’s be honest with each other: no one wants to know this.

Super Inflatable Knees! Now Half Off!

As I was walking the puppy this morning, I realized something that I’ve been semi-acknowledging by refusing to actually acknowledge it for weeks: my left knee is in trouble.

I went from not needing any sort of bandage on it, just leg warmers to keep it warm when I was dancing, to the occasional ace bandage, and now I’ve jumped all the way to ridiculous neoprene knee brace with patella support and tracking as well as side support. It’s an old knee brace, so it isn’t like I’ve just run out to my friendly neighborhood orthopedist and gotten a new-fangled contraption. But the reality is it’s necessary. Very necessary. I should probably be wearing it whenever I put weight on my knee necessary.

I was so excited by getting to dance again I didn’t really think about the consequences. When I went to play tennis with Superman a few weeks ago and spent the following week with my right wrist wrapped in an ace bandage, I chalked it up to the whole “I haven’t been using that joint in that way, so of course it’s going to react” phenomenon. I suppose the same thing has been going on with my left knee and dance class. I’m bringing on the Zumba, I’m teaching my very own Baby Dance class and assisting to take over another Baby Dance class, and I’m putting everything out there during Bobby’s adult hip-hop. Knee-schmee. It’ll just have to get used to it, but it will get used to it. I’m fine. I’ll be fine. Let’s do some lunges!

As I reacted to the pain climbing the stairs this morning, tightening my face and biting the inside of my lip, I had to finally admit it’s real and it’s growing. This is probably the bitchest part of RA. I can be a perfectly normal individual, nothing hurting, nothing slowing me down, but I’m on the edge of everything going wrong. I don’t know how wrong my knee is going or what the end result will be (Super Inflatable Knees!), but I know that the only way to fix it is to quit what I’m doing. Stop, make sure I understand where the edge is, and reset myself so I’m not stepping over it in any way. No more dancing. No more taking the stairs if it isn’t unavoidable. Back in the pool if I want to exercise. I just can’t do that, though. I’ve been handling the big 2-9 pretty well, but that’s partly because I’ve gotten back some important things in my life I had lost, the big one being dance. I want to keep this up. I enjoy this. I’m proud of my Baby Dance girls, and I’m proud of myself for busting out Bobby’s choreography in hip-hop. Zumba is fun and another means to an end (potential $$$ once I’m certified). The best part of my week is heading to the dance studio, even if it is after a long day of “work” and teaching and field experiencing and trying to keep up with homework. I absolutely refuse to chose a healthy joint over something I love.

Eventually I’ll have to have my knees replaced. This is inevitable, especially due to being diagnosed with RA at such a young age. Advancements in joint replacement are happening all the time, and recently replacement joints were developed that are gender specific, helping to speed recovery time and increase post-op joint use. If I continue the way I’m going, knee replacement could happen sooner than later, and as cyber-joints don’t last forever, I could potentially go through at least one pair before I kick the bucket. I’m not looking forward to this, but I’m accepting it, just like I’ll accept whatever kneebrace from hell my doctor can come up with when I see her in January and explain I’m stupid and going to continue being stupid. I suppose I’m sort of like a smoker, in that I understand the damage I’m doing to my body, but I’m not stopping. It’s my choice.

It just isn’t the smartest choice I’ve ever made.