YOU KNOW YOU'RE GETTING WORSE WHEN....

when the lift is broken (yet again) at work and you wonder how long it will take to get up 2 flights this time..........and back down again!

1. You graduate from one stick, to two sticks, to crutches then a rollator. I know what's next and I don't mind as it means I will still be able to go out and do stuff.

2. The meds don't work as you want but you accept what they do as without them things may well be a damn sight worse.

3. The Christmas Tree. December 2008 it took one day. December 2009 it took two. December 2010 it took four. December 2011 I thought I wouldn't bother, found I just HAD to and it took a week. This year I'll start it a week early, ie the last week of November.

4. I iron my husband's stuff. I don't care how I look, body heat sorts out the worst of the creases.

5. I cook sitting down. As for the milk seals a sharp knife does the job and stabbing it through the foil is very therapeutic!

For some life don't change too much, for others it changes quite a bit and for some it changes beyond all recognition. What does count is our inner strength, our core resilience, our courage in not letting arthritis defeat us. I thank whoever I live in a time when there is medication, there are gadgets and gizmos and new joints might be an option. OK, arthritis ain't fun but imagine having it 100 years ago. It's tough DeeDee, there's no doubt about that but you know what? You'll get there, we all do and we will help you as much as you can. DD

PS As usual valval sums it all very neatly and I blather!

DD, spot on with the one stick, two stick-crutches business, lol..

You know you're getting worse when.....
You can't carry the shopping for the wife :roll: :oops:
Can't drive more than half an hour without being in agony for a couple of hours.. And that's on a good day.
Your only social life is going to appointments :shock:
Your parents can walk a lot further than you.
You've to stop buying footwear with laces... :roll:

Having to ask hubby to zip trousers up,even though you have one of those gadgets to help pull things.Mig

Ah tkachev - I did that bit in a day! Mind you I still have two plastic boxes of Santas in the sitting room - I must get 'em up the stairs somehow. And various other ornaments hanging about which must likewise be cleared. Oh for some energy! What is that stuff and how do I get it? DD

When you decide it 's better to stay in bed
when OH builds a downstairs loo for you
When you have to take off rings because your fingers look like sausages!

When you have to get your daughter to fill your pill box because the never ending pills are too fiddly for clumsy fingers, and you haven't got enough strength in your fingers to open the bottles or pop the blister packs they come in.
When the pharmasist knows you so well he gives you a calendar each year and lets you try the openings on pill bottles before he puts your medication in them
When you haven't got any matching crockery because you keep dropping bits and it doesn't bounce.
When everyone you visit lets you try the size of the mug handles before they pour your drink in the hope that you'll get a grip and not drop their mugs too!!!!!!!

Deep joy! :oops:

Hope you're all having a half way decent day.
Deb x

When you shuffle along the hall to the bedroom to get something and get distracted by something else and come back out what you went for and then remember and have to repeat the whoel thing 3 times before you actually get what you originally went for.
and you realise that you have the memory span of a Goldfish :shock:
oh and the receptionists at the doctors don't even ask your name when you phone them........ and the sister at the surgery gives you a big up like an old friend.