A New Rheumatologist and My Burgeoning Abandonment Issues

Hello my silly readers!

I promised you so so so much catch up, but before we get to the fun juicy stuff, I have to tell you all the boring deets about my last rheumatologist visit. Don’t I have a fascinating life?

In January, my rheumatologist left the practice and I was assigned a new one AGAIN. At first I was like “NONONONONO! Why does everyone leave me!” It took me ten seconds to suppress these growing abandonment issues that sprout up every time one of them leaves. I am usually optimistic that the next doctor is going to be “The One.” I always have high hopes that I’m going to serendipitously stumble into a doctor who’s open to alternative health like some kind of rom-com for sick people.

For our first appointment together, I went in with a giant swollen hand that was a  on the Wong-Baker pain scale.* One knee, the opposite hip, and my neck were all pretty destroyed at the time, too. The doctor seemed really open to a rediagnosis because I was like, “Dude, some of these symptoms are NOT ankylosing spondylitis symptoms,” and he was like, “Dudette, let’s explore. I think it might be psoriatic arthritis.”

And thus, I embarked upon a ton of new blood work, starting from the ground up. The phlebotomist took vial after vial after vial from me, and I kind of wanted to feel woozy so she’d give me a cookie, but no dice. I was strong and virile, and she was a stingy vampire.

When the blood work came back, it revealed…

NOTHING. Like a black hole of insight.

Ladies and gentlemen, the breadth of knowledge gleaned from my blood work.

I went in to the office with real actual joint pain in my giant, swollen hand (not a typical AS symptom, hence the retesting), yet my inflammation markers took on a Fran Drescher voice to say, “Woooowww, you look fantaaaaastic. Move alooong.” And this was me:

I actually decided to wear makeup that day!

I was tested for Lyme disease, too. They used the Western Blot test, which separates the antigens into bands that are compared to banding patterns in known cases of Lyme disease. The only band that appeared was an insignificant one, and they only recognize Lyme disease if there are 5 bands present. There’s controversy over whether or not the Western Blot is accurate, but I feel it’s safe to assume I don’t have Lyme.

One fun new bite of information is that I tested positive for the HLA B27 gene. I’d never been tested for HLA B27 upon my original diagnosis. It’s a gene that may (or may not) indicate (or not) the presence (or absence) of ankylosing spondylitis (or something else entirely). The reason I was never tested for it before is because of the complexity of the previous sentence. Basically, it means nothing.

The HLA B27 gene is found in many people with AS and also those without. It’s also NOT present in some people who have AS, so I don’t put much stock in it.

This post is getting BORING AS HEEEEELLL, so I’m going to speed up some other results: Negative on rheumatoid arthritis, normal inflammation markers even though my right hand looked like a giant steak that could have fed three grown adults.

There were also urine tests, and the biggest insight from those results was this hidden compliment:

SOURCE: URINE, CLEAN CATCH

Thanks. I’ve been practice my technique.

But there was one surprise, dear friend. Read on!

You won’t BELIEVE the SHOCKING ending of THIS LAB TEST!!!!

That kind of headline seems to work for a lot of shitty websites, so I thought I’d try. When I was originally diagnosed, the conclusion was reached based on speckled ANA (antinuclear antibodies).

But in an unexpected twist of fate, this time, my ANA came back NEGATIVE. Pause for dramatic effect. How is this possible? Those babies are not supposed to go away. They’re like your microscopic battle scars, showing all the crap you’ve made it through alive. What happened to my scars?

There are reports that in conjunction with certain immunosuppressant treatments, ANA and other individual antibody levels may decrease but rarely become negative.

While the Humira could have lowered the ANA titer, it’s unlikely that it would have eliminated the ANAs. It could mean the lab effed up. It could mean I’m super woman. It could mean a lot of things. It could mean paleo is working (even though I wasn’t being very strict about it). It could mean I was misdiagnosed. It could mean I’m an alien.

When I asked my rheumatologist, he said, “Huh. Yeah. I don’t know. Try this methotrexate.” Sigh. So much for knowledge is power.

Dear god no. 

I’ve tried methotrexate before, but I was taking it daily. He assured me that taking four pills one day a week and adding folic acid would reduce the side effects of feeling like a giant shitball, so I went, whatever, I’ll give it a shot.

Here’s a little foreshadow for the next post: I felt like a giant shitball. Details to come.

‘Til next week, my little pincushions!

Katie

 

*Can we make Wong-Baker a verb? Like “OW! I just Wong-Bakered the crap out of my knee.” “Man you really Wong-Bakered yourself. You ok?”

4 is my standard resting face.

Game of Thrones Yoga!!!

I’m currently carefully crafting some posts, but in the meantime, head over to the Bad Yogi blog to see my new article! It’s a Game of Thrones yoga sequence. It will NOT make you zen because Westeros.

Maybe this will help the zen:

 

Soham

I’m bringing it down a little today. I don’t feel like being funny. Your usual late night hosts don’t feel like being funny. No one feels like being funny this week.

We don’t talk about straight privilege, but we should. We don’t talk about Christian privilege, but we should. We don’t talk about mainland-born privilege, but we should.

I’m not going to recap the news for you. I’m not going to tell you the problem is gun control or radical Islamism or anti-LGBTQIA+ rhetoric. You’ve already heard plenty of that and there’s plenty more to come.

I want to talk about soham. It’s a mantra that means “I Am That.” I rebelled against this the first time I heard it. I was like, “No way in hell am I like someone who shoots a bunch of people in a theater. No way in hell am I the guy on the train that sneers at anyone of a different race.”

It took awhile, but now I understand. I am that. I am a racist and a terrorist, and I am Mother Theresa and a gay Puerto Rican man who just got killed. I have committed genocide and I have successfully performed open heart surgery to give a mother back to her family.

If we embrace soham, if we embrace the fact that the universe ties us all together and that we’re all one, we can take responsibility and start to make changes. When we don’t act or speak up, we are complicit in the violence, in the greed, in the corruption, in the hate and bigotry because that is a part of us that if left unchecked can destroy the world.

I am that. I am responsible for making change. I am the good and I am the bad. We all are and it’s time to love each other. You don’t know the impact you have when you spread love, but it’s the biggest force in the world.

Until then:

A- always center the impacted
L- listen & learn from those who live in the oppression
L- leverage your privilege
Y-yield the floor

— Kayla Reed (@iKaylaReed) June 13, 2016

All my love, support and privilege,

Katie

I’m Baaaaaaack!

Holy Crap. I’ve been gone so long, the WordPress dashboard changed and I don’t know how to function. What the hell have I been doing with my life that I couldn’t post in a year?

A whole. damn. lot.

Basically I had a total health crash. Just obliterated. Totally messed up, shaking sobs at my desk at work, joints falling out of sockets (not literally), eye blowing up (not literally), all that kind of stuff. I’ll dive deeper into that in the next blog post because today’s is just a quick one to prove that I’m still alive (though I listen to enough true crime podcasts to know anyone could have stuffed my body in a garbage can, hacked into this account, and started writing a blog post. You’ll never know).

But I’m back because I missed reaching out to all of you and the way you reach back to gently caress my blooming ego with your little internet hands.

So what have I been doing?

Healing. And a million other things, but mostly healing. After my TOTAL breakdown, I cold-turkeyed that particular med and changed my food habits, and I feel freaking amazing.

So let’s ease back into this relationship. Let’s not spend so much time together today that we need another 1-year hiatus. Here are the cliff notes for my last year:

1. We adopted a cat! And somehow she doesn’t upset my allergies (she’s a Bengal and they’re “known” to put off fewer allergens, but I think that’s also mostly bullshit, so magic?) She was up for adoption because she’s cursed. I hope my dude and I are the owners that survive.
2. Got a new rheumatologist who rediagnosed my ankylosing spondylitis as psoriatic arthritis, but *not really* because the tests really didn’t point much out (more on my crazy test results in a coming post!)
3. Started a new drug at his recommendation that caused a meltdown at work that probably freaked the hell out of my co-workers (more on that in a coming post!)
4. Learned what foods my joints and muscles like the best and overhauled my diet (more on my food adventures in a coming post!)
5. Worked on a health coach program (more on that in a coming post!)
6. Graduated from a yoga teacher training course, so I’m now a 200-hour registered yoga teacher (more on that in a coming post!), which means I can put this badass little symbol in my email signature LIKE A BOSS:

As you can see, there are many upcoming posts. Maybe I was just stalling this whole year until I had more material. I didn’t really analyze it too much.

So tell me what’s new in your lives! Part of why blogging is difficult to keep up is that it’s not as interactive as having a dialogue, but I want to dialogue with you, my tiny-internet-hand friends! Comment below and tell me how you’re doing!

Love, kisses, and all that shit,

Katie

I Love Being Sick Part 2: Probiotic Frenzy!

Welcome back to part two!

Guess what! I’m sick again! Some throat thing. It hurts, but my body feels GOOOOD!

One theory regarding the prevalence of autoimmune disorders is that we don’t get enough dirt in our diets that supplies the germs that support a balanced immune system. One of my friends recommended eating a spoonful of dirt from my yard each day. Could be beneficial, but I don’t know if the people who owned the house before us fertilized with chemicals, and also my dogs have recently acquired worms.

Back in the day, fruits and vegetables weren’t sterilized before they made it into our likewise grubby hands. There were bacteria on everything we ate and before you say eeeeeewwwwwwwwww, remember that those bacteria were what supported our immune system. They were good for us.

Now we wash, bleach, disinfect, sterilize, polish and freaking wax our fruits and vegetables. What does that do to these crucial environmental probiotics? It sends them on a cilia-raising thrillride down the waterslide of the factory’s drainage system.

And it’s a rusty thrillride.

I’m not endorsing any particular product. I haven’t even tried this one myself because I’m supposed to be off all probiotics until I poop in a box to send through the US Postal Service (hey! Maybe your meal delivery service package will be on the same truck as my poop!) where, upon receipt, really unlucky lab workers will test my doo doo for Klebsiella bacteria, a potential factor in ankylosing spondylitis. Since I’ve been putting off this shitty adventure, I haven’t taken my trusty probies for a couple months now.

When I resume, I’m going to try Just Thrive Probiotics. Composed of the bacillus strains abundant in nature that we just don’t get anymore, these bacteria are stable in the environment as well as inside the host and also act as an antibiotic, killing off only the bad bacteria. They form a shell that keeps them safe and viable through the gastric system.

I am skeptical about one thing. I’ve heard these kinds of probiotics help balance the immune system, but Just Thrive’s website emphasizes the immune boosting properties of each strain, which is not necessarily what someone with an autoimmune disorder needs. Maybe that’s just marketing though, since that’s what the general population wants.

One of the strains, bacillus coagulans claims to help patients with IBS and Crohn’s. I skimmed a few studies like this, this and this that confirm these claims. This strain also apparently supports anti-inflammation systems in your body.

Oh, and also BOOM! THIS, a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, parallel-design, clinical pilot trial (*deep inhale*) that shows it reduces rheumatoid arthritis symptoms. SAY WHA? Sign me up, Baby!

According to the National Institutes of Health, patients taking immunosuppressants should exercise caution since it stimulates the immune system. FUCK THAT. I like to live on the edge.

I know I just talked about the one probiotic, and it TOTALLY sounds like I’m TOTALLY promoting it, but I’m not. No one has given me any money, but hey, if I’m going to talk about Humira by name, I’m sure as shit going to talk about my probiotics by name. Try them or don’t. It’s your life!

(Dear Just Thrive, If you DO decide to give me money, I’ll talk about your product in every post for the foreseeable future. Call me!)

Pillows Be Bitches

A couple months ago, I bought a down pillow for my boyfriend. Every morning, I get out of bed and play a game I call “Feather or Spider?”



It doesn’t help that I have bad eyes.

The reason we were pillow perusing at Bed Bath and Beyond is because I’ve been using the same pillow I got from a chiropractor 5 or 6 years ago. It looks like a yellowed, water-stained donut, and it stretches the pillowcase to the max. I’m no connoisseur of fine bedding sets, but I know this thing is weird, ugly and smells like hair.

I feel pretty good when I wake up on this monster, but it’s not comfortable to sleep on. I had this other pillow for awhile that had me dreaming of cotton candy, clouds, and bunny tails, but by morning my neck vertebra were backwards. Literally. I woke up like the girl in the exorcist.

I’ve been on the hunt for something that’s both comfortable and aligns my pleasantly misshapen body, but I have yet to find it. I’ve tried two memory foam numbers and I don’t get the national obsession with that shit. My head needs to be 10 pounds heavier to sink into it. It’s just like laying on a boulder smoothed to flatness by the quiet I passage of water and time.

Sorry. I’m in bed typing this on my phone, and I’m very zen because I just want to sleep but inspiration hit.

I’ve returned two of these NASA-grade pillows and the same worker was there both times, so she probably thinks I’m some serial pillow user who circles between all the stores in town, using a new pillow every night. I’d call myself The Snooze Snatcher and my super power would be using the store credit to the penny in the same visit.

If anyone has any pillow recommendations I’ll take it. Money is no option. I’ll take out a loan. I’ll sell my eggs. For the perfect pillow, I’d pay the price of a lightly used 2012 Ferrari.

Right now, I have a date with a certain blasé donut and these doggies have decreed it bedtime.



Dog or Spider?

VaccinationGate 2015

I know I promised you part 2 of my “I Love Being Sick” series, and I promise that will be coming out soon, but I needed to interrupt your regular programming with a little talk about vaccinations because holy shit have you seen Facebook?

No matter what side of the needle you’re on, here’s what it all comes down to:

We should always be questioning medicine and research funded by people who make the product being researched. There are so many historical examples of this from arsenic to opium to Dr. Batty’s Asthma Cigarettes.

Even know, the effectiveness of cholesterol-lowering drugs to control heart disease is in question as more research (like this and this) NOT funded by drug companies finds that high cholesterol does not cause heart disease. The creators of drugs are in it for the profit, and therefore, we MUST question them and do our own research.

I’m speaking to pro- and anti-vaxxers here. There are claims made by both parties that are unfounded, and if we all do research representing both sides of the matter, we’ll understand much more. When you research only the side you want to believe, you only find information that already supports your belief. I bet most of you haven’t read a single study. I’m not talking about an article where someone refers to a study, I mean a read study with an abstract and methodology and conclusions. THIS is where the real information comes from.

1. Autism – Not proven to be a result of vaccination. The study that started this idea was discredited. The vaccine component usually blamed for autism is thimerosal, an organomercury compound. What people don’t understand about mercury is that there are two types. Methylmercury is the really dangerous one you hear about, ethylmercury is its less bad brother. Thimerosal is made from ethylmercury, which is less toxic and moves out of the system much faster, reducing the risk for over-accumulation.

Between 1999 and 2001, the amount of thimerosal in vaccines was reduced to trace amounts, and no reduction in the rate of autism has been detected.

Here’s my beef with the autism issue. While people spend energy addressing it, the REAL issues get swept to the side.

2. Autoimmunity – THIS is what we should worry about. Repeat immunization can lead to autoimmunity (Hey! Ankylosing Spondylitis tie-in!) as shown in this study.

3. Blaming unvaccinated people for spread of disease – ANYONE can be a carrier. Vaccines reduce the risk of coming down with the disease, they do NOT kill the microbe. If a baby too young to be vaccinated catches measles, she may have gotten it from a long chain of vaccinated people passing the microbe around.

Diseases like measles and Ebola naturally come in waves. They recede, they come back, they recede, they come back. There’s another outbreak of measles in Toronto. This concurrent outbreak is unrelated to the U.S. outbreak; they are two different strains, and there’s no travel link between the two. This comeback is just the natural evolution of the disease like a Backstreet Boys reunion tour.

4. Data on vaccination effectiveness is often not represented accurately. Data reports that after vaccines, disease mortality rates plummeted. But if you look at that data, you notice the rates decreasing BEFORE these vaccines were used. As we advance our medical practices, sanitation and knowledge, mortality rates decline regardless of vaccination. Check out whooping cough’s plummeting mortality rates WAY pre-vaccine.

Sorry, boring chart graphic.

http://www.vaccinationcouncil.org/2013/11/12/vaccines-a-peek-beneath-the-hood-by-roman-bystrianyk-and-suzanne-humphries-md/

This is an apology for the boring chart graphic.

5. Necessity – Measles is less deadly than asthma where we live. In the U.S. in 2011, there were 222 cases of measles and 0 deaths, according to the CDC. In the same year, 3,345 people died of asthma, an illness we commonly think of as controllable. Sure, it’s riskier to people who have a compromised immune system, but so is a cold. Studies have shown massive doses of vitamin A and vitamin C to drastically reduce the rate of mortality from measles.

6. Efficacy & Trust – Pharmaceutical companies have lots of money and hang out with lots of government friends, and that means that they can fun studies that support the results they find beneficial. Merck recently got in big trouble when they were found to have skewed data that finds their mumps vaccine to be much more effective than it is. The case involves sexy stuff like monopolizing the market to drive up the price, false claims, improper testing and manipulated results, mislabeling and false certification with the FDA and CDC.

“However, instead of reformulating the vaccine whose declining efficacy Merck itself has acknowledged, the company reportedly launched a complicated scheme to adjust its testing technique so that it would yield the desired potency results.”

This lack of integrity pervades both sides of the argument. The Wakefield study “proving” an autism link was funded by a law firm hoping to secure some fine cash money by suing vaccination manufacturers.

“I’m not an anti-vaxxer, but part of the problem may be that the medical community is not trusted by the public. Everyone knows that studies on the same issue can produce opposite results. Who are we to believe if the medical community can agree on something?”

You find wisdom in the craziest places. I pulled that from the comments section in the article regarding Toronto’s measles outbreak. It about sums it up.

7. This fact – Furthering the trust issues, a law was passed in 2011 releasing pharmaceutical companies from any harm done by vaccines. Regardless of your take of general vaccine safety, keep in mind that even Tylenol was recalled due to dangerous quality control errors. When you take away the responsibility, you take away the consumer protection.

8. Superbugs – Like antibiotics, relying on vaccines can create superbugs that are resistant, stronger, more prolific, and more dangerous. Newer strains of whooping cough lack one of the proteins that the vaccine targets. What does this mean down the road? It means when there are breakthrough epidemics, they’ll be way, way worse. Here’s a Penn State study that finds the whooping cough vaccine enhances the development of the disease and may be the reason for the increase in prevalence in the last decade.

9. Eradication – doesn’t exist. Microbes of anything will survive, hang out with carriers, and infect when the opportunity arises. Travel to other countries will spark outbreaks. The goal of eradication is impossible, and we need to stop acting as if this new outbreak threatens it.

Do I feel for the families who are dealing with measles right now? Of course. I don’t blame them for feeling like victims of an unvaccinated population, but at the same time, we need to reassess blame, understand doubts and protect ourselves the best we can.

Would I vaccinate my kids? I don’t know yet. If that time comes, I’ll be researching the latest data.

Should vaccination be mandatory? No. Even with a suppressed immune system, I am pro-choice. Period.

I Love Being Sick Part 1: Establishing the Contoversy

Wow, what a rabble rouser I am. So against the grain and edgy. Look at me, claiming to enjoy being sick! I’m so spunky and different!

With a statement as controversial and polarizing as this one, I feel the need to explain before the riots start and get out of control and I’m pulled off my pedestal (what pedestal?) and tossed to the side in favor of a more normal person who hates being sick.

So there’s something that happens every time I get sick, and it’s kind of magical. I feel GOOD. I mean, obviously I feel crappy. Headaches, congestion, cramps, epic chronic nosebleeds, yeah, but my joints? Miraculously cured.

I have my own theories although I can’t confirm it via the interwebs. I postulate that when you have an autoimmune disorder, getting sick forces your overactive immune system to focus on the actual bad guy invaders instead of your own otherwise healthy tissue. Pretty simple. Pretty solid. Maybe not fact, but it’s the closest explanation I can come up with.

Every time someone around me gets sick, I’m like, “Hey, you wanna get ice cream and share a spoon?” “Hey, can I have a drink from your water bottle?” “Hey, stranger who lives next to the Starbucks Dumpster, wanna make out with me?”

I spent most of December and January rolling a gooey snot ball around in my lungs and coughing shit up. It felt pretty gross, but if I could have breathed better, I promise you my body would have felt great on a 10-mile jog. My head was all fuzzy, but my arms and legs were ready to go, strong as bull.

I want to invent a miracle cure. It’s simple. It’s cheap. But no one’s looking into it as far as I know.

DEAR DOCTORS,

I’m going to need to you to go into your little labs and do some research for me. No, no, no. Please put down the spring-loaded syringe pen and listen to me for a minute because I don’t really like that thing.

Step 1: Grab some Petri dishes and start cooking. Your mission, should you accept it (which you probably won’t because I’m talking to myself out here in interweb space), is to figure out a nice little germ that’s innocuous enough to not give someone any symptoms but will still attract the attention of someone’s immune system.

The perfect culturing medium

Step 2: Inject these germs into some autoimmune patients. Please be gentle. We’re tired of shots, and no, you don’t just “get used to them” when the liquid inside is actually made of battery acid and microscopic razor blades.

Step 3: Monitor symptoms. I’m sure you know how to record data and all that stuff. Keep tabs on everyone’s inflammation levels and stuff and see what happens.

Step 4: If you’ve created a mutant superbug that’s sweeping the nation destroying everyone in it’s path, you done fucked up.

Step 4 (alternate): If you have NOT created a superbug, you’re good. Keep going.

Step 5: If this little germ helps patients and does not cause any symptoms, MASS PRODUCE IT!!!

Until this process is done, I will just keep shaking hands with sick people and licking my palm after. Ah, the salty taste of temporary relief!

Sincerely,

Me

Look out for part 2 of this post next week in which I look at some germs you can get WITHOUT snuggling up to someone’s leaking nostrils — probiotics!

And with that, I leave you with one final thought:

The technical term for “gross snot and boogs” is “Bronchial secretions.” Visualize and enjoy!

Watch Yo’self

Well, I’m not usually one to shit on others’ work, but here I am doing it anyway.

The other day, I read a post on another ankylosing spondylitis blog, and I was straight up appalled. I just started following this blog, and this was the first post I read, and it made a pretty negative impression. Here are her own words. All bolding is my own, all grammar mistakes are her own:

“When I started doing therapy in the homes I would listen as any good therapist does and then get on with my treatment sessions. I didn’t talk about my health or my problems until one day I was seeing a woman who had a myriad of problems but none that were life threatening or debilitating. She was very negative and continually told me I couldn’t help her. I begun to get so frustrated wondering “Why am I even here?” I sat down on the floor and looked at her, letting all the pain I felt internally show upon my face, because up until this time she had never seen me grimace let alone hear me cry out in pain.

She asked me what was wrong so I told her my story.”

First of all, this therapist just pulled some Great-Aunt-Bessie-style passive-aggressive shit on this patient by sighing and looking sad to elicit an “ohmygodwhat’swrong” reaction so that she could tell her story. The scene I’m picturing is also just incredibly pathetic.

“I told her about the last two years and how my life had come to an abrupt halt. How I lived in constant pain, couldn’t walk, sit, lay without yelling, screaming or crying. She never said a word, but listened intently. When I was finished I looked at her with tears in my eyes and told her that ‘I wish I had just one of her problems for if I did and not any of mine I would be jumping for joy every time I woke up.’ After a few minutes I looked at her again and she said “I’m glad my health isn’t as bad as yours!'”

And that was where she elicited a “What. The. Fuck.” response from me. I’m no therapist, but I fo sho know people don’t pay them a ton of money for the great honor of listening to the therapist’s problems. The dangerous thing here is that she effectively trivializes her patient’s problems by saying they’re not nearly as bad as her own.

I’m sure she was trying to put this patient’s problems in perspective, but that’s not the way to do it. It’s unprofessional, unkind, unproductive, and I would have asked for my damn money back.

Let’s look at the next patient, shall we?

“Last week I got a new patient with a head injury and luckily for her it is not as severe as it could have been. Again we went through the poor me and pity me stage until I hit my frustration point… ‘At least you have a recognizable disability’ ‘People don’t just think all your injuries are in your head!’ ‘How would you like to have an invisible disease where everyone thinks your just crazy and making things up?’ Yep that did get her attention. ‘What do you mean invisible?'”

Another passive-aggressive comment that makes me cringe. Again, not a therapist here, but I’ve learned from my meager life experience that being passive-aggressive never leads to a healthy solution. I also have some (many) problems with the term “invisible disease,” so look for that in an upcoming post.

I totes cringe-giggled when she basically said, “At least no one thinks your head injury is all in your head.”

“Again I told my story and the look on her face was priceless.”

Ok. Here’s where my interjections get more frequent. Priceless? PRICELESS? I’m glad she’s using her story of pain and anguish to shock a patient into replaying a MasterCard commercial.

“I honestly told her that I would rather have her head injury because if I did something people didn’t like I could say ‘Sorry I have a head injury!’ but when I don’t get up and clean the house or go to town to get groceries it doesn’t go over to well when I say ‘Sorry my back/legs hurt!’ People see your pain as real but my pain is just in my mind.”

Holy balls. This “therapist” is killing me. What kind of educated person says they’d rather have a head injury? I’d choose ankylosing spondylitis ANY day over a head injury that would increase my risk for seizure, stroke, mental trauma, partial amnesia, Alzheimers, blod clots, nerve damage, paralysis, or anything else on this god-forsakenly long Mayo Clinic page.

Also a statement like, “Sorry I have a head injury!” opens you up to a hell of a lot more schoolyard jokes than, “Sorry my back/legs hurt!” In my family, I’d die before admitting I had a brain injury. I have uncles and cousins who would latch onto that and NEVER let go.

Her logic is faultier than that balsa wood racecar I made in shop in junior high. Since when does it “Not go over to [sic] well when I say ‘Sorry my back/legs hurt!'” I’ve asked male strangers at Target if they could reach top-shelf tampons for me because my shoulder hurts, and they’re like, “Yeah, no problem, Mate.” Not ONCE has anyone said, “Prove it, ya big old faker. It doesn’t LOOK like your arm’s severed mostly off the rest of your body, which is the only way I’d ever in a million years believe you were hurting.”

This “therapist” is projecting her insecurities about her own illness onto her patient who she’s supposed to be helping with HER insecurities regarding her injury. I’m really hoping this is pro bono work. At the end, she says that both patients are now happy and healthy, but I suspect they were faking it like hell as they backed out of her office and into a better therapist’s care.

She’s dismissing the gravity of both of these patients’ REAL problems by relating them to her own, which are different but no more severe.

As AS patients, it’s easy to get pulled into the pity party. I spent a couple of years there, and even now every once in a while, I belly up to the pity bar and order myself up a couple fingers of strong woe-is-me.

But as human beings we need to remember that we’re not the only ones suffering. When someone is complaining of their cold symptoms as you struggle to walk, it’s hard to remember your empathy. You want to shake them, but they honestly feel like crap just as much as you feel like crap.

Never negate anyone else’s problems. You can step away and refuse to get involved if you don’t like it, but you’re only doing damage if you act like this my-shit-stinks-worse-than-your-shit “therapist.”

Screw New Year’s Resolutions

Because the year is new and stuff, millions, nay, billions, of people around the world will promise to hit the gym, stop nagging, do better at work. “What’s your resolution?” someone will slur at you around their seventeenth weak gin and tonic as his metallic purple NYE!!!!! crown slumps over his ear. “Blah blah blah,” you respond as no one listens or believes you’ll actually stick to your goal of blahing.

What’s my resolution? Nothing. That shit don’t fly with me. That’s why I’m biting my thumb at our Gregorian NYE and reviving this blog three days early!

Now I can’t promise I’ll post on a regular basis. I might forget about its existence again for another year, but I’ll tell you what. If you subscribe and you tell your friends about it so they might subscribe, you’ll get an email every time I post. You can click on the link, and I promise I’ll only give you my best stuff every time.

Check out my past posts for funsies in the meantime.

I’ve got a drawer full of (digital) drafts that I’m ready to unleash on y’all so get ready for some brand new ankylosing spondylitis fun!!!

I’m back, bitches!