The first question has to be why. Why start to blog, why me, why RA, why now? And dammit now I’ve asked I have to answer.  This requires a little self analysis, but it’s my blog, indulge me a little?

The why’s are actually all one question, and the answer is Rheumatoid Arthritis. Diagnosis day Tuesday 10th March 2015. It feels like that should be bigger, maybe with banners and fireworks, though not necessarily pretty ones. Very much a D-Day.  More on that later perhaps.

I started having obvious symptoms around six months ago, and my standard method of processing things is to write. I will think them over, but will then start making notes, run them past friends, whether in person, online, by text etc, I read, I investigate, I gain some comprehension, then I process by writing. Or typing. Semantics. In it’s essence writing down my thoughts is my filing process.

I have been very fortunate to have discovered a couple of great groups on facebook who have not only put up with my sometimes very wordy posts but made me feel welcome, and validated.

And that leads me to here. RA is a demon. Make no mistake, it’ll enter your life oh so quietly, and then overnight it becomes your every waking thought.  It provides pain and aches and stiffness and inflammation and itching and pins and needles and that’s before you get started on the medication. But above all it brings what has currently become my nemesis, fatigue.  And this is where validation has been a literal lifeline – the fatigue has had me on the floor, and without the online RA community I would have felt as if I was going mad. It leaves you feeling so isolated and alone, as if no-one understands. Except they do. Those beautiful fellow RA’ers, they get it, in spades.

So, blogging. I’ve attached a wordcloud of my brainstorm when I was thinking of doing this blog, key for me is having somewhere to connect, hopefully inform and share, occasionally (or maybe more often) vent, but mainly to remove the isolation.  I know I am not the only “single rheum” out here, and my hope is this blog will become a virtual room where connections can be made, or sometimes just validation sought.

We are NOT alone.