Good Morning RA

You awaken at 7am and before you even open your eyes you are aware of which joints are achy and which joints hurt.   You wiggle your toes and rotate your ankles, open and close your hand and circle your wrist.   You try to move the covers and realize your arms are too weak and painful.   Slowly you bend your knees moaning and stopping several times before they are high enough to displace the covers.   It takes a full 2 minutes to roll over in bed enough to get the covers off your arms.  Heart rate is up; tears are brimming, time to rest.  You finish getting the covers off and sitting up on the side of the bed, it is now 7:30a.m...  As you sit on the edge of the bed resting you start your range of motion exercises to help the stiffness that feels like every joint is wrapped in an entire roll of duct tape.  7:45am you slide off the edge of the bed and stand up.  As the weight hits you feet, ankles, knees and hips they all start screaming like someone has put them in a vise.  Once you get your balance you take your first step of the day and moan.  12 steps to the bathroom take 3 minutes.   You fall on the raised toilet seat and give a big sigh of relief.   You are thankful that you remembered to load the freedom wand with toilet paper last night.  Now you are so tired and dreading standing back up so you sit there and wait.    When you get up (and close the lid) it takes a bit to get your hand to operate the flushing mechanism.   8:15am time to brush your teeth.  It takes 2 hands to get the toothbrush out of the cup, and get toothpaste on it with a tube squeezer.   You sit back down and using 2 hands to hold the brush, brush your teeth.  Stand, rinse your mouth and take a deep breath.  Its 22 steps to the front door.  Your feet feel like you are walking on marbles.  Your ankles feel like the worst sprain ever.  Your knees are wrapped in duct tape full of rocks and clamped in a vise.  You made it to the door in 5 minutes let the dog out and collapse in the recliner next to the door and fall asleep at 8:40am.  9:30 let the dog back in and hobble to the kitchen for breakfast.  Takes 2 hands to pick up the empty bowl and place it in the seat of a chair.  Two hands to lift and pour the cereal and milk.   Now you have to pick the bowl up with your wrists instead of your hands and move it up to the table.  You place your left palm on the bowl of the spoon to make the handle rise off the table and maneuver your right hand to hold the spoon without grasping it.  Each bite is a combination of raising the spoon as far as possible then moving your head down to get it.  Hobble back to the kitchen and put the bowl in the sink.  11am take your meds, hobble back to bed.

You were awake 4 hours and still haven’t brushed your hair or changed clothes.  This is a moderate day, not the best and not the worst.  Think about what you do in the first 4 hours of your day.