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April is the cruelest month...
Apr. 30th, 2015 10:20 amT.S. Eliot certainly got that one right. My mother died in April 2006. Just last week, my mother-in-law died too.
She and I were quite different in terms of temperament, political views and a number of other ways as well. But we did have some things in common. We both watched Coronation Street. She kept me well supplied with light reading: Harlequin romances, mysteries, celebrity biographies - in short, all those guilty pleasures that librarians like me are supposed to sneer at!
She was a very creative person, always knitting or crocheting or smocking something for one or other of her children or grandchildren. She even made costumes for a couple of theatre groups. She had a beautiful singing voice and music was very important to her, as it was to the entire family.
We got along well together and I think a large part of the secret to our relationship was that we were always more or less on an adult-to-adult footing. She never knew me as a child and there wasn't all the emotional baggage that I had to overcome with my own mother. Nor could she trot out any of those embarrassing stories about how I told her to take the new baby back to the hospital... though come to think of it, my mother could never have told that particular story about me because I WAS the baby that everyone else no doubt wanted (at least on occasion) to send back to the hospital!
There's another link between the two deaths besides the fact that they both occurred in April. And that link is rheumatoid arthritis.
I was first diagnosed with the condition shortly after my mother died. At the time, I was also going through a lot of stress and nonsense at work. But since my retirement in 2009, I had been relatively symptom-free, though I still had to take some meds, get blood tests every couple of months and see my rheumatologist once a year.
All was well when I checked in with her in early December. Ditto for my routine blood tests in mid-March. But a few weeks ago, it became clear that my arthritis was flaring up again. So I made another appointment.
The doctor tells me that while stress doesn't actually cause the arthritis in the first place, it can definitely be a trigger for a flare. And she told me I was "definitely flaring". She upped my meds again and wants me to get the bloodwork done every 4 weeks.
Last time (back in 2006), although all my joints were swollen, the arthritis was especially noticeable in my legs. I would get up in the morning and lurch painfully from one piece of furniture to the next, because my legs could barely hold me up. Things would improve a bit over the next hour or so, but I would still limp about slowly and painfully all day. Those legs had more weight to bear in those days too, maybe because of an overproduction of cortisol, maybe it was some sort of postmenopausal-related weight gain, or maybe it was just too much reliance on fast food and irregular meals back before I was retired and had the luxury of time.
This time around, it's my upper body that's most affected - my fingers, my shoulders and points in between. I'm still able to walk okay, but have no strength of grip even for things like squeezing a shampoo bottle. Day-to-day tasks like getting dressed in the morning can be painful.
And the meds, especially the methotrexate, leave me absolutely exhausted, yet still unable to get much in the way of quality sleep because of physical pain and mental and emotional stress.
At least the additional anti-inflammatory dosage is starting to kick in and I am daring to hope I may have turned a corner.
There's another well-known saying about April: April showers bring May flowers. And tomorrow it will be May. All the advertising surrounding Mother's Day may prove a little trying for the recently bereaved. In our case, however, it will at least be mitigated by the fact that we can look forward to welcoming grandchild number three later in the month.
She and I were quite different in terms of temperament, political views and a number of other ways as well. But we did have some things in common. We both watched Coronation Street. She kept me well supplied with light reading: Harlequin romances, mysteries, celebrity biographies - in short, all those guilty pleasures that librarians like me are supposed to sneer at!
She was a very creative person, always knitting or crocheting or smocking something for one or other of her children or grandchildren. She even made costumes for a couple of theatre groups. She had a beautiful singing voice and music was very important to her, as it was to the entire family.
We got along well together and I think a large part of the secret to our relationship was that we were always more or less on an adult-to-adult footing. She never knew me as a child and there wasn't all the emotional baggage that I had to overcome with my own mother. Nor could she trot out any of those embarrassing stories about how I told her to take the new baby back to the hospital... though come to think of it, my mother could never have told that particular story about me because I WAS the baby that everyone else no doubt wanted (at least on occasion) to send back to the hospital!
There's another link between the two deaths besides the fact that they both occurred in April. And that link is rheumatoid arthritis.
I was first diagnosed with the condition shortly after my mother died. At the time, I was also going through a lot of stress and nonsense at work. But since my retirement in 2009, I had been relatively symptom-free, though I still had to take some meds, get blood tests every couple of months and see my rheumatologist once a year.
All was well when I checked in with her in early December. Ditto for my routine blood tests in mid-March. But a few weeks ago, it became clear that my arthritis was flaring up again. So I made another appointment.
The doctor tells me that while stress doesn't actually cause the arthritis in the first place, it can definitely be a trigger for a flare. And she told me I was "definitely flaring". She upped my meds again and wants me to get the bloodwork done every 4 weeks.
Last time (back in 2006), although all my joints were swollen, the arthritis was especially noticeable in my legs. I would get up in the morning and lurch painfully from one piece of furniture to the next, because my legs could barely hold me up. Things would improve a bit over the next hour or so, but I would still limp about slowly and painfully all day. Those legs had more weight to bear in those days too, maybe because of an overproduction of cortisol, maybe it was some sort of postmenopausal-related weight gain, or maybe it was just too much reliance on fast food and irregular meals back before I was retired and had the luxury of time.
This time around, it's my upper body that's most affected - my fingers, my shoulders and points in between. I'm still able to walk okay, but have no strength of grip even for things like squeezing a shampoo bottle. Day-to-day tasks like getting dressed in the morning can be painful.
And the meds, especially the methotrexate, leave me absolutely exhausted, yet still unable to get much in the way of quality sleep because of physical pain and mental and emotional stress.
At least the additional anti-inflammatory dosage is starting to kick in and I am daring to hope I may have turned a corner.
There's another well-known saying about April: April showers bring May flowers. And tomorrow it will be May. All the advertising surrounding Mother's Day may prove a little trying for the recently bereaved. In our case, however, it will at least be mitigated by the fact that we can look forward to welcoming grandchild number three later in the month.
