There is NO cure for Rheumatoid Arthritis. At this point in time, a diagnosis of RA means you have it for life.
I have RA. I was diagnosed about a year or so after No. 2 was born. I had gone back to work when he was 6 months old, as a chef in a large day care centre (a job I took just before I discovered I was pregnant because I was burning out fast in my previous chef job). I had a chorus contract with the local opera company for an opera being performed in a big arts festival, so the schedule was very heavy. I was still breast feeding, and this child didn't have even the remotest interest in solid foods. When I started to struggle, feeling very ill and achey, having difficulties with nappy pins, suddenly finding that the large knife I thought I'd firmly grasped had flown across the work kitchen, and a few dropped trays of food later, I headed to the doctor, feeling as if maybe it was more than just being a mother of a nursing baby trying to manage a household, an older child and two jobs... My GP fed me the only anti-inflammatory drugs and pain killers I could safely take while breastfeeding, and gave me a referral to a rheumatologist. Things got a little bit complicated and drawn out after that because I've never shown a positive rheumatoid factor - a marker in blood tests that is used to determine a diagnosis. Anyway, long story short, he diagnosed me with sero-neg RA, and that job came to an end as it was aggravating the situation. I had to wean No. 2 - a torturous experience, as neither of us was ready for that - so I could start some more serious drugs, and a new life stretched out ahead of me.
At the time, it looked forbiddingly bleak. My then husband didn't handle it all that well. Illness wasn't one of his 'things'. I got very sick from the first drugs they tried. The strength of the NSAIDs (non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs) was steadily increased until they, in conjunction with some heavy duty prescription pain killers, started to give some relief. Then the rheumatologist wanted to start me on Methotrexate (MXT) or gold injections - the two bigger drugs of that era. I read through the potential side effects - long and short term - and was horrified. MXT is a chemo drug, used to fight some types of cancer - used in smaller doses for RA. I refused to take it. He agreed, reluctantly, saying there was no point prescribing something I really didn't want to take, and also, pain aside, there wasn't enough happening in my blood tests to warrant it medically. Things stabilised more or less. I had a huge full body flare that put me bed for six weeks when No. 2 was nearly 2. My mother and aunt arrived to manage the house so No. 2's father could manage his shift work job. Physically, I was kind of managing. Emotionally, not so well, and eventually had a breakdown. That was the last straw for my marriage, which crumbled at that point, so by the time No. 2 was 4, I was on my own with him and No.1, who was not quite 11.
Very fortunately, my RA was quite slow moving. Over the next eighteen years, it got worse, but very, very slowly. I had ups and downs, flares, losses, pain, constant use of NSAIDs and increasing use of analgesia. But I was so scared of the side effects of the stronger drugs, I put myself into GP care so I wouldn't have to argue with the specialist all the time.
However, it was bad enough for parenting to become a whole new ball game. No.1 could remember me pre-RA, and struggled initially to deal with a mother who couldn't always run around with him as much as I had. I got a lot of, "But you're ALWAYS tired now...", which was hard to hear. I was. But I couldn't do much about it. Pain is exhausting. No. 2 knew no different. He was a bigger, heavier baby than No.1, so from the get go, picking him up and carrying him around was harder. He had to learn from a very early age, to get himself places - and he did too, rolling all over the floor from about 7 months. He crawled early, and was walking much earlier than No.1. And walking much MORE than No.1 did, because it wasn't a simple case of picking him up and carrying him if he got tired and we weren't using the stroller - he HAD to keep walking. I made games of picking up in their bedrooms, so that they learned to do it in a fun way. I had them bringing their own clothes to the laundry basket. I put chairs in the kitchen so they could reach the sink and learn to do their own dishes. We still did lots of play things together - one memory both have is the wonderful tents we made with sheets and the dining table, full of cushions and rugs, where we could lay and read stories, and they could play out all sorts of fantasies and keep themselves occupied when it was hard for me to get down there.
I lot of people I know through forums online, and groups on Facebook, who have younger children still at home worry so much about what their illness will do to their kids. How much they might miss out or lose by having a sick parent. What they don't have to miss out on - which many kids do these days - is TIME with us. A lot of us are at home. These diseases can make it very difficult to hold down full time jobs with regular hours, because the diseases themselves don't behave well enough to make keeping to a regular schedule that simple. Getting stuff done around the house WITH your kids, which is what I did - with the bait being a game or treat, or some TV (my kids didn't get a lot of TV so that was a HUGE treat) when the jobs were done - meant that there was always something to be done together at any time of the day, and we could usually find a way to make it fun. No. 2 learned to count handing me pegs when we hung the washing out. He learned colours matching up socks when we brought it in to put away. He learned lots of maths learning to cook. I have a version of my muffin recipe written out in big print and simplified for him to make from the time he insisted on doing it "all by myself" - he was five. No.1 could put a whole meal on the table by himself by the time he was 12. They both learned patience, and having to deal with things being cancelled sometimes because I wasn't well enough. No.1 would put on hugely entertaining performances for me at the park when we went, because he felt, I think, that he had to make up for me not being on the slippery dip with him - a few falls and subsequent injuries clued me in very quickly about the ramifications of injuries to a systemically arthritic body.
These days, at 29 and almost 23, they are very self sufficient young men, who are capable of running their own households very well. They can shop and cook, clean, wash, do basic repairs on clothes, and No.1 irons a shirt better than anyone I know (a little help from being a RAAF cadet there...!). They have very strongly empathetic personalities. They 'get' it, when someone is ill. I don't see any scarring in them that I could lay at the feet of my RA. Other things perhaps - No.1 declares that I scarred him for life making him eat mushrooms as a small child...but you know what, I'm sure a spot of therapy could fix that!
Compared to a lot of the young people I see around me today who have had far more done for them than my two did, they appear to me to be much better adjusted and prepared for real life. I'm not alone in seeing this as a phenomena - it's not just my skewed view as their mother. Hunting around online - since there's a dearth of actual press articles on the topic, which is what I usually use as a springboard for these posts - I found an Australian parenting site that had an excellent page on this very topic. You can read what that has to say HERE. It's specific to 'disability' but it holds true for people with chronic illness, as the nature of these diseases can result in considerable disability, while not being injury related as the 'read my story' example is.
Unfortunately for me, after some years of what I think must have been some kind of spontaneous remission, my RA is back with a vengeance. I hate to think how I'd have coped when the boys were little if it had been as severe as it is now. I'm on the 'grown-up' drugs now - I have no choice. It was that, or give up on walking. What I do know though, is that I wouldn't have done anything with them any differently. I'd have needed, even more than I did then, for them to be fully participating members of the household at whatever level they could manage at different ages. That's so for any sole parent, and it's certainly so when that parent has a disability or a chronic illness, and it still stands if there's a supportive partner there. Children are remarkably adaptable creatures. Particularly when they're young. They are incredibly accepting. They also LOVE being given 'grown up' jobs.
One of my very favourite stories (which I may have shared on this blog before, I can't remember) about No. 2 was the time he insisted he could do ALL a load of washing - from beginning to end - by himself. He got it all sorted, he got it loaded, got the soap in, got it running and then choofed off to do something else while the machine went through the cycle. When it finished, he put his small chair up against the machine to get it all out and into the basket. Hearing a funny noise, I went to peep, and he was almost upside down in the tub, fishing out the little things from the bottom with a pair of tongs from the kitchen because he couldn't reach the bottom of the machine - entirely his idea. He did ask for help to carry the basket out to the line, and then dismissed me again, before dragging one of the outdoor setting benches underneath the line so he could reach up to peg things on. Up and down he stepped until it was all hanging. And again, when he brought it all back in later - neatly folded into the basket to save on ironing... He was 6. And walked SO tall the rest of that day because of what he'd achieved. So, had my RA been this bad back then, I think the three of us would have been just fine.
Don't ever underestimate your children and what they're old enough or big enough to do. They'll surprise you every day. And they'll teach you something every day. And they'll learn things every day that they'll take into their own lives, and possibly even thank you for the opportunity you gave them. Mine did.
For readers wanting a really good blog that is RA based - and has oodles about the day to day issues of living with the disease, including parenting, I recommend Arthritic Chick.
