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CG ShopFighting Systemic Juvenile Rheumatoid Arthritis |
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| Written by CG Girl |
| Friday, 09 October 2009 19:46 |
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Written by: Erica Mendez With New Year’s around the corner, resolutions are being made, and most of them will be from young women, like me, dedicating themselves to lose weight or to be healthier. While others will struggle to maintain a healthy diet and change, some will find it harder to even start, like me. Being healthy isn’t supposed to be a chore, but that’s what I find it. Since I was five years old, I’ve been fighting Systemic Juvenile Rheumatoid Arthritis. It’s a chronic illness that hits muscles, joints and at times the inner organs, with symptoms like inflammation, pain, and rash. I’ve realized that being healthy, was always a chore to me, and since I hated chores, I never pushed myself to be as healthy as I can be. I always thought “I’m sick anyways and it doesn’t matter.” It didn’t occur to me that I still had to concentrate on my overall health just as long as my JRA was under control. To control my JRA, I’ve been on medicine after medicine. When I was younger, I’d taken over 15 medicines morning, noon, and night, while most were to control the pain I was having. When I was 13 years old, I was sent to the hospital for over two and a half months going in for pneumonia and stayed in there for complications of my JRA and something that doctors couldn’t figure out. I’d been in the hospital before, but not to this extent. I’d always been let out a few days later, but not this time. Something was severely wrong and no one could figure it out. I had so much pain, morphine began to wear off and I had no strength to keep my eyes open. I spent most of my time sleeping only to wake up to eat. I was unaware of what was happening. I didn’t know that I had new doctors assigned to my case as well as my Rheumatologist. While I was in the hospital, my weight fluctuated. I’m not proud of how much I weighed because during that time, I had weighed 200lbs. and I was only 13 and less than 5ft tall! Even when my doctors wanted me to try physical therapy, I was in too much pain and tired. When I began to feel better, I had to learn how to walk again. It was like I didn’t understand how to move my legs. When I would try to stand up, I would fall. Often times, when I fell, I would get big bruises that would stay there for weeks. Staying in bed and only eating without any type of movement or exercise, I had gained a lot of weight. There were times when I didn’t eat and lost the weight, but when I would feel better, I would gain the weight right back. Being in the hospital that long had drained my strength away. I didn’t want to do anything else, thinking I was just going to be sick and there was no way I would lose any weight. At such a young age, this mindset stuck with me for so long. Before my freshman year, I was being weaned off a medication that I was given during my two and a half month hospital stay: a chemotherapy drug that was used to control my JRA and pain. It worked miracles, but my doctors told me, being on chemotherapy for so long would do more damage than help. Slowly, I’d begin to be weaned off, and by the first semester of my freshman year in high school, I was completely off of it. But I got sick again. I remember getting sick again the summer I would become a sophomore. I wasn’t eating. I would not touch anything. Every time I ate, I would feel nauseated and it would come back out a bit later. My JRA was beginning to flare up again and doctors were force feeding me. I had lost so much weight, it was unhealthy. I’d been given a strict diet to follow after I got out of the hospital. Even after that, I couldn’t do it. I would try my hardest to become a healthy person, but I never followed through. My health may be endangered with my JRA, but maintaining a healthy life style with what I eat, how I exercise, how I think and my actions can all contribute to my JRA. My JRA has been under control for years now, with the help of a certain medication. But my health would be in better shape if I had taken the time to notice that I can still be healthy and still be a person with JRA. I’m taking the chance, for the hundredth time, to become healthier. I’m attempting to plan my meals and work out by doing a 30 minute jog/walk, until I have endurance to do more. It’s the little things that count the most. I’ve been through so much with my JRA. I look back now and realize that I was someone different back then. Changing a lifestyle means, taking who you were, and becoming who you are supposed to be. I’m still working on it, but I know that my JRA has shaped me into a person who is willing to fight for what I want, and I finally want to be healthier. I don’t want to be defeated by a disease. When I notice that I keep losing motion in my joints, I realize that in order for me to take control, working out and eating healthier will help a lot. It won’t be easy. As I did my jog/walk the other day, I realized that my ankle began to hurt and how it was beginning to feel warm, and I knew my JRA was flaring up a bit. Pain isn’t something you are supposed to get used to, yet I’ve had the ability to do so. According to my father, Vince Lombardi is the greatest football coach that ever lived, and he died of cancer. The story goes that he passed away because he quit coaching. I’m sure he never gave up and neither did his teams. “The price of success is hard work, dedication to the job at hand, and the determination that whether we win or lose, we have applied the best of ourselves to the task at hand.” I guess, what I’m really trying to say, is that even with my JRA, I finally realize, that I can’t give up. My life won’t allow me to, and neither will my health. Anyone who is struggling, remember what Lombardi said, because you’re never going to get anywhere with giving up. Just be glad that you can BE IN CONTROL of your health, whereas others still need help being able to manage it. |
