An Excerpt from "A Resilient Life"

It's an amazing journey when you have rheumatoid arthritis. "Amazing" can be positive or negative, and in the context of living with a chronic disease -- it's both. I've had the disease for over 36 years and there are times I'm still amazed. Learning to thrive along with the ups and downs is the biggest challenge. There are books written on how to do it -- but everyone experiences their personal journey with rheumatoid arthritis their way. I've read the books, I've even written one myself. Occasionally there is a book that really resonates, that's worth the read. "A Resilient Life" by Kat Elton, OTR, is that book. ~ Carol Eustice

An Excerpt from "A Resilient Life"

Mae West once said, "Old age isn’t for sissies," I say neither is arthritis. People with arthritis are some of the toughest people I know. Put a bunch of people with arthritis in a room with professional athletes and they’d have a lot to talk about: how to push through and go beyond a pain threshold that would stop most people in their tracks, how to ignore discomfort, how the snap, crackle, and popping joints between them could create a chorus, how to pick yourself up after a fall, what it’s like to be alone out there. Professional athletes will brush off injuries because those injuries jeopardize their ability to participate in the next game. People with arthritis will brush off their pain because it jeopardizes their ability to participate, period.

When you are diagnosed with a chronic disease you soon confront one of the most humbling experiences of being human. In large part we are completely alone in our experience. The people around you can go on with their lives, yet you have to deal with this 24/7. Sometimes it may feel like you are treading water, other times that you are sinking and occasionally you get to swim. Your whole world has narrowed and widened at the same time. Narrowed, because you have this entity to constantly keep track of which can feel stifling. Widened, because you have been introduced to a whole new world-being a patient.

There is so much decision-making that you alone must make from what medications to take, how much to spend on things to ease your discomfort, and the limits you place on yourself and others so that you have enough energy to make it through the day. The internal dialogue can get very busy. Explaining it all to others may seem so difficult you don’t even know where to begin. You alone end up juggling the busyness in your head. The fact is that having a chronic disease can isolate you from others both emotionally and physically. All of this is important to confront as early as possible in your process of living with chronic disease.

And then it’s important to remember that for a penny to be a penny it has to have two sides. In life, for something to exist there must be an opposite to even it out. Night/day, love/hate, fear/trust, isolation/togetherness, and disease/ease. It is possible to thrive with rheumatoid arthritis as contradictory as this may seem at first. The road that leads there embraces both sides of the coin. The alone part can lead you toward taking responsibility, seeking out others to be on your healing team, which leads you to togetherness. You learn to live in both. You learn to see the opportunity that life has brought you; the opportunity to slow down, really look at yourself, and experience who you truly are.

Thriving with arthritis means you wake up every day and decide to thrive. In doing so you see that your greatest tool is your perspective, and attitude really is everything. You learn to be patient. You learn to transform your suffering into compassion, which literally means "to suffer with." You’re humbled, time and time again, and then you’re grateful. You work hard to do your homework but then you allow yourself to live in the unknown. At times all you can do is laugh at the absurdity of it all. Eventually you realize how truly resilient and strong you are.

There is richness in a life of thriving with chronic disease I doubt can be gained anywhere else. Through it all you must reach into the depths of your soul, be strong, savor the experience, and be grateful. It will transform you and I guarantee it will make you a better person. How you do this is up to you. The Golden Rule in this game is to keep trying, if you are doing that you are doing everything.

For more information about the author and why she wrote the book, go to www.katelton.com.