So, I’ve been gone so long, I forgot how to get into the admin part of this site. I shall have to use their newfangled platform. New to me, that is.

You know what they say, life is what happens while you’re busy making other plans. Or as my mother used to say: Uno pone, Dios dispone. (one plans, God decides)

But as they also say, life goes on, RA and all. I don’t want to exclude my little parasite for fear that it might resent being ignored, like Glenn Close in the movie Fatal Attraction.  That was a great line, “I’m not going to be ignored,” she said. Why would Dan think that a force like her could ever be ignored.

RA is like that. It won’t be ignored, but we can try. Every day. Some days I’m more successful than others, and presently, it’s behaving itself. I have been doing manual labor for five weeks. I decided to go on a remodeling binge. My husbands pleads, “This it, right? We won’t do this again, will we?”

Funny thing, he has to do nothing, except put up with a little inconvenience, like sleeping in the other bedroom for a couple of weeks while they worked on our bathroom and closet. And maybe skirt around the furniture while they paint the walls. He’s at work all day. I’m the one home juggling the needs of several crews at once.

But I did bring this on myself. I never knew how many books I own, or how many framed pictures and artwork were on my walls. Seeing them all together was eye-opening. And I’m willing to lug my beloved books from room to room, no matter how heavy they are.

My only complaint is that if I sit too long in between spurts of activity, I have a hard time getting restarted. I feel like the tin man, rusty as hell, frozen in place. But as I told my rheumy who laughed at me (laughed with me?) it’s age, wear and tear, not specifically RA. Though I’m sure it’s in cahoots with the osteoarthritis, and we won’t specify the age. I’m years young, not years old.

It’s been a busy year. I was psyching myself up to live through another June 11th, the day my husband tried to check out last year. We are both still traumatized by those events. And while I was dreading the day arriving, my son had a car accident. He had an injured ankle, which turned out to be fractured. But the cause of the accident rocked my world. He’d had a heart attack, at the age of 35.

This was June 2nd. And at three o’clock on the morning of June 5th, while I was trying to sleep but couldn’t because they were going to do a cath that day to find out what heart damage there was, my older son called me.

You know that a 3 a.m. phone call is a bearer of bad news. I held my breath as I reached for my phone, thinking about his children, him, his wife. But they were all O.K. He had called to tell me his father had just died. From a heart attack.

He’d had three already, and had been told his only possible treatment was medications. I knew the day would come, but you are never ready. I’d spent part of my life with this man. And though we went our separate ways, we remained connected through our son.

I immediately wanted to split myself in two. Both my sons were in trouble and needed me. One, alas, far from me. I had to think. I know my older son has a wonderful support system in his wife and her family. I see how they love and respect him.

And my younger son was scared to death, his wife is pregnant and she has no real family close by. I had to stay put. But it was really, really hard living through the physical and psychological trauma of one son, while aching to be with the son who was feeling such emotional pain.

I will see him and his family in a couple of weeks. We are meeting up in Disney World. And then we see each other again for Christmas. I can’t wait.

My younger son is dealing with his new, hereditary health status and is still limping around. It will be a while before his ankle, tendons, and ligaments, recover to where he can get back to his karate training. He had scheduled to test for his 2nd degree black belt at the end of June.

Meanwhile we await the birth of his little girl in nine weeks or so. I can’t wait for that either and have broken out my sewing machine. More baby quilts to make.

Through all this, RA has maintained a presence, though not an overly aggressive one. I am completely off Prednisone and have had no other med changes. My labs are slightly off, but then so am I.

Hope all is well with you, dear reader.