Helly vs Arthur

What a difference 10 months makes!

Rewind back to last September... I'd not been particularly well and was looking forward to a tranquil week away in Italy.  Spending my days relaxing by Lake Iseo, sipping frappe's in a little cafe, reading the books I'd not quite got round to, and just absorbing myself in the Italian culture...

An Unwanted Visitor

In the post 'Its Been A While', I mentioned that I became ill shortly after my Italy trip.  Well here is where I will finally fill you in on what happened....


So grab a coffee, a comfy seat and I shall begin.....

Picture This!

‘Let’s Work Together’ is the theme for World Arthritis Day 2009.


The aim of this project is to provide inspiring pictures of people with rheumatic diseases who have found ways to work, despite of some of the challenges they may face because of their condition.

Restless Ranting

Well I managed to have brekky... honey nut cornflakes & banana, and got myself dressed.

Feeling very restless today.. weather doesn't help as the sun has buggered off, replaced by rain and my joints are having a good old whinge!

I'm only 2 weeks post op and have another 4 weeks to go so I know I'm gonna have to come up with a plan of action to stop myself from climbing the walls.

The worst parts for me are lack of sleep as I need to sleep on my back and my body is thinking otherwise. The other is not being as active as I usually am... Not even allowed to push a vacuum cleaner around. I miss working, I miss earning money and it certainly adds towards making you feel useless.

Sooo what to do to turn it around.... well for starters I'll munch on a satsuma.. that always makes me feel better... :-)

The thing I need to concentrate on the most is my recovery... building muscles back up and from there everything else will slot into place... energy levels, mood etc...

Anyone else been in a similar dilemma?

Rheumatoid Arthritis Guy Nails It!!

I love having a read of other peoples blogs.. some are quite amusing and others are a definite eye-opener!


The next one I would describe as jaw dropping because in all my years of having arthritis, no-one has ever come close to describing it just how this guy does....

He goes by the name of Rheumatoid Arthritis Guy and has a 60-Second Guide To RA.....

Below is a taster... with the full version being available in PDF from his website



Okay, let’s pretend that your body is Gotham City. Your immune system
is Batman. Your joints? Well, they are tiny bat signals. Batman -
thinking that Gotham City is being invaded - is forever going to all the
bat signals and attacking everything in the vicinity, leaving behind lots of
damage. (He never seems to realize that these bat signals are actually
false alarms.)




No words can accurately describe the physical pain that is caused by
rheumatoid arthritis. (Although this mental image, for me, does come
close: A Mack truck ran over me. And then it backed up, and ran over me
again!) Rheumatoid arthritis pain is chronic and is not something that
can be easily fixed with just an aspirin. This pain can be one of the most
crippling aspects of living with RA.

First of many I hope...

Well I finally got round to signing up to one of these things... For many years I have kinda wanted to share my experiences as someone who not only enjoys writing but also as someone who has a long term medical condition. In my case its a condition called juvenile idiopathic arthritis, which basically means I was diagnosed with a childhood form of rheumatoid arthritis when I was 3 years old, and its affected a majority of my joints.

One place its not affected is my mouth as I have more rabbit than Sainsburys, but it has affected my vocal chords which means every so often I sound like I am on helium... hilarious to those around me!

The arthritis itself has been in remission since I was 12 thanks to a combination of drugs, Methotrexate (a form of chemotherapy) and Deflazacort (a form of steroid). Unfortunately, it was also an aggressive form of arthritis so the damage was done to my joints and I've had some of them replaced (cue Bionic Woman!!)

Latest one was 12 days ago, a total left hip replacement. It was a success and I had my clips taken out today which feels soooo good! Now starts the hard work... building the muscles back up...

So anyway that's it from me for now... no doubt I will pop back later... I'm guessing these blogs things kinda work from random thoughts... at least that's the way I'm gonna look at it so if I start going off on a tangent, slap me back down to earth!

Bye for now!

H x