The thing about roller coasters is that there are highs and lows...the highs are sometimes worse than the lows.  Odd, I know, most people enjoy that drop in their gut as they begin the down slope to the bottom of the coaster, but not this girl.  She doesn't enjoy the ups and downs. She doesn't want the feeling of vomit rising in her throat. No, not my idea of a good time. Maybe I'm just not a thrill-seeker. These past two weeks have been just that, many highs and many lows. Donna Summer...listening to her on my transistor radio on WLS...come-on, you know the jingle, sing it in your head. She had some awesome songs. We've had our last dance with her for now. Both of my kids are graduating this year....highs and lows. But for today, I'm thinking of a peace that passes all understanding. a Peace that only comes from a certain place. And hoping this Peace keeps me alive with hope. That's enough for now...no more roller coasters please.

Yes, it's a rusty old bike; kinda like my knees. Problem is I love to ride my bike. I have one of those wicker baskets for the front and I love it. I'm really too young to give up something that I love so much. There were many days that my brother and I would ride into town to spend our allowance at the drug store. I still take that route somedays...it takes longer to get there and I don't race anyone anymore, or stop along the roadside to pick Indian puzzles (don't know what they're really called, but they're those weeds that grow in ditches that you can pull apart and put back together.) My Aunt Stella always called them Indian puzzles, so that is what they were always called.

As for that bike up there...I've been beating myself up in warm water therapy with a little girl who looks like Snow White but acts like the wicked step-mother when we're in the water. I guess that's what a good Physical Therapist does though. Hopefully, by the time my son's open house has come and gone, my husband and I will be able to get to some bike riding. RA has taken a lot away from me & I've lost enough already, so, I'll keep working with Snow White so that in a month or so, the bike won't be so rusty and neither will my knees.

I guess the point of writing this blog is to come to some terms with how "sucky" life can be at times. But, there are glimpses of something more that makes you want to laugh again, makes you want to move your stiff joints out of bed in the morning and more importantly, makes you want to see that life, cyclical in nature, will be reborn out of the ashes of grief, lonliness, and utter mental exhaustion. I'm not a depressed person. Quite on the contrary, I have been the prankster, the better half of what was deemed the "fun" couple, and the one my in-laws have decided they would "keep" should there ever be a divorce between myself and my loving other half. But, I am also alone and but for my husband and children, I find myself in the unique (or maybe not so unique) position of being the last one alive in the family I grew up in.

My RA first began 1 week before my 40th birthday. Yea for me (she says sarcastically)...I ask why, but am afraid that those answers won't be answered until I see "greener grass." Not the kind that Scott's promises you out of the bag if you apply enough to kill all the worms in your yard and then soon after all the robins...no, this grass exists in the next world where all my family awaits me. RA is not a "fun" disease. No one outside the medical field really understands what it means to have such a silent disease and then these same "well-meaning" folk wonder why you're walking funny. Drugs given today are to prevent deformity, which is a good thing, but on the other hand, until the rheumatologist finds the "best" drug to manage your disease, pain meds are not given...after all, how will you know if they're working or not.

Currently, I'm taking Humira injections every other week. Are they working? I hurt, but my fingers and toes aren't horribly deformed yet. So, while I can still type and want to share my story with whomever cares to read it, I have a great deal of painful words to write. There will be no "Bridges of Madison County" ending with me requesting that my ashes be dumped into a river somewhere. There will just be honesty in caring for dying people, stories that made me laugh about other people, and sometimes just the simple gripe here and there about pain. I have some venom to write; I have some love to write. But, at the end of this blog (i.e. when I'm no longer to type) be looking for the long dip and kiss by George Clooney or maybe just a piece of rhubarb pie, warmed please, with 1 scoop of vanilla ice cream.