My biggest fear
Nov. 17th, 2004 11:13 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
fatesfollyWhen I was 9 and going into the fourth grade, my mom was hired as an English teacher at the local private school. The upside? I'd get to go for free.
The summer before school started, my mom was busy getting her source materials updated. She had not taught in almost 10 years and she was busy nesting in a teacher way. During this time, she started experiencing unusual joint pain. After many doctors, they finally discovered she had rheumatoid arthritis. They advised her not to work. The worst part for me was returning to public school.
She was 42. She only lived 11 more years. But those years were lived in extreme pain. Any overwork of her arthritic joints and she'd pay dearly. Writing bills became a chore. Walking in the mall ceased. Her footwear went from mom shoes and dress shoes and work shoes to just the tennis shoes. Countless surgeries would fuse bones together so that joints would not become inflamed. New and improved drugs for arthritis pain came out, sometimes sooner than they should have, with many hazardous side effects. My memories of my mother during this time are filled with her pain.
It left a scar on me. My single biggest fear is inheriting the genes that cause this pain. I have a substantial risk of inheriting diabetes from other family members, but I'm losing weight now mainly to reduce the amount of torture to my body, and hopefully circumvent the big A. The ironic thing is that diabetes is the killer of the two diseases and it's my memories of my mother's battle that drive me to avoid arthritis, not diabetes.
Five years ago, I was diagnosed with having tendonitis of the achilles tendon. In time, it went away. Since I've upped my physical training to include a 2, 3, or 5 mile walk each day, depending on available time, my ankle has started hurting again. My mind goes immediately to the questions of arthritis.
In addition to my ankle, my wrists have been giving me some trouble. It's more where my thumbs attach to my wrist than the actual wrists. I've ruled out carpel tunnel syndrome because I do very little repetitive work with my hands to cause it.
With both of these small discomforts, my mind goes back to my fears.
The summer before school started, my mom was busy getting her source materials updated. She had not taught in almost 10 years and she was busy nesting in a teacher way. During this time, she started experiencing unusual joint pain. After many doctors, they finally discovered she had rheumatoid arthritis. They advised her not to work. The worst part for me was returning to public school.
She was 42. She only lived 11 more years. But those years were lived in extreme pain. Any overwork of her arthritic joints and she'd pay dearly. Writing bills became a chore. Walking in the mall ceased. Her footwear went from mom shoes and dress shoes and work shoes to just the tennis shoes. Countless surgeries would fuse bones together so that joints would not become inflamed. New and improved drugs for arthritis pain came out, sometimes sooner than they should have, with many hazardous side effects. My memories of my mother during this time are filled with her pain.
It left a scar on me. My single biggest fear is inheriting the genes that cause this pain. I have a substantial risk of inheriting diabetes from other family members, but I'm losing weight now mainly to reduce the amount of torture to my body, and hopefully circumvent the big A. The ironic thing is that diabetes is the killer of the two diseases and it's my memories of my mother's battle that drive me to avoid arthritis, not diabetes.
Five years ago, I was diagnosed with having tendonitis of the achilles tendon. In time, it went away. Since I've upped my physical training to include a 2, 3, or 5 mile walk each day, depending on available time, my ankle has started hurting again. My mind goes immediately to the questions of arthritis.
In addition to my ankle, my wrists have been giving me some trouble. It's more where my thumbs attach to my wrist than the actual wrists. I've ruled out carpel tunnel syndrome because I do very little repetitive work with my hands to cause it.
With both of these small discomforts, my mind goes back to my fears.
