Recently diagnosed, how does the future look?

Hi everyone, or anyone.

Bare with me please, perhaps I just need to get this off my chest, and perhaps there are members out there that can offer some advice.

One night in late October 2023, I went to bed, as normal, ready for another day at work which I needed to be awake for by 3:30am. At around 2:00am I awoke with very painful fingers. Initially I thought I'd perhaps turned onto them in the night and twisted them, or something, but I called work and said I would be in. My fingers had swollen quite a bit, actually. Anyway, the GP took a look, thought perhaps it was gout, which I'd never heard of in the fingers before, but hey, I'm no Doctor, so why question this. They are professionals in their field, I am in mine. After being informed to take anti-inflammatories, which worked for a little while, the swelling returned with a bit of a vengeance. The hand had swollen up and this was now heading close to December 2023. I'd gone through a number of anti-inflammatories getting stronger and stronger, each starting off well for a few days, but knocked quickly back down. By the beginning of December, I couldn't work no longer. Which was hard for me. I love my job. I work 12 hours a day which fly by, it's an active role, even a little climbing in and out of highline HGV cabs because I am a driver trainer. (There's way, way, more to my role than just that, though.) So now I'm out of work on the sick. I can barely walk because my ankles have ballooned, my hands look like boxing gloves, and over a period of a couple of months, I've lost muscle content in my arms to the point where I could barely lift a 4pt bottle of milk. Most the time I couldn't even open the bottle if it was new anyway. In fact, there was very little I could do for myself now. It wasn't until March that I was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis seronegative factor, which doesn't show in blood tests, apparently. All I know is all my tendons in my arms and legs where inflamed and even the morphine I was on wasn't giving me relief from pain, though I'd have hated to see what the pain would be like without them. I haven't slept in my bed since mid - late December. I can't lay on my sides because of the pain, and when I lay on my back, (now this is weird,) my arms would go to sleep, so I'd end up with tingling in them as I'd the circulation had been cut off. Even now, after the initial steroid injection, starting methotrexate and hydroxychloroquine and on a course of reducing steroids, I struggle to get upstairs, I have to sleep sitting on the sofa surrounded by pillows and cushions, as well as rest my feet on them for comfort to ease the pain. It just seems there's no end and my poor wife has to drag me out of the sofa half the time, as best she can considering I'm a 6'5" guy that weighed originally 123kgs but about 116 after recently putting some weight back on. That's the physical side of things, but the mental side has taken a real beating, too. I think I'll lose my house. My wife and I married 11 years ago this August, I was 49 and she 44. At 53/48 we took a mortgage because private renting was forever increasing. The recent interest rates increase pushed my mortgage to over £1100 pcm and I really fear losing our home. It's nothing fancy, just the repayment term that makes it expensive.

Yes, I am very depressed. I probably won't be able to continue the job I loved. I'll probably lose the house. My wife will forever have to mother me. But even so, suicide is not an option. I had an out of body experience in the late 90's so noooooo freakin' way am I going along that route, but death does often, too often, run through my mind. It's a long term solution to a short term problem, even though I know I'll have this for life. Still I struggle with everything, opening milk bottles, getting up and down stairs, getting off the sofa, bathroom and toilet issues, (poor wifey).

Things just look so bleak at the moment and I don't know what help is available if any. I doubt anything will help me, but my wife, perhaps.

Apologies for the doom and gloom, just needed to get a fraction of this off my chest.