1. November 2009 by Bex.

We had a nice Halloween!  Ron and I decided to go as Fred and Daphne from Scooby Doo.  There were pre-packaged costumes so no work on our part.  We headed off to the party in Independence, not knowing hardly anyone.  All the people were super friendly and awesome.  What a great group!  They were also really creative and fun with their costumes.  Due to the cats though we could only stay a couple hours but it was worth the trip.

Here are some photos from the night.  I will probably get names wrong, sorry in advance!

My Daphne costume

Ron as Fred

Detail of the Glory Hole costume

Liz, I can’t remember her husband’s name and Ronnie’s “penis” in the background

This is the normal look I give my husband, even out of costume.  Notice the “Scooby” at our feet.  Dogs can smell a dog lover in the room!

My beautiful friend Summer who rocks in so many ways

Summer and I….I feel like the Amazon woman with no neck in this photo!

Hope everyone else had a good Halloween!

Posted in Scooby Doo, Halloween | No Comments »

1. November 2009 by Bex.

Lately I’ve been feeling a lot better mentally and physically.  Some days I think I can go back to a 40 hour work week.  And then I hit a set back.  I paid really close attention to my symptoms this week though and tried to analyze things as they came up.  I’m too lazy and inconsistent to do a symptom diary though.  Yes, I lick ass.  Such is life.

I thought perhaps if I avoided stress completely, kept up on sleep and all my medications, I would be able to control my health.  How egomaniac is that?  You can’t control everything.  You can be doing everything right, everything within your control, and still feel like shit.  It really hit me on Friday.  I had organized a potluck for Halloween at work, assisted a researcher all morning and then watched the desk most of the afternoon.  I did some running around and helped people out.  By 1:00 I could feel a weight in my chest and the skin on my face was red and felt like it was on fire.  By the end of the afternoon I was really run down.  When I got home, I felt like there was a fire lit in my torso, my knees were stiff and sore and I was limping.  I was shaking a lot too.

I really did have a good week overall.  I was able to participate in some professional development and networking at a symposium.  I got some things done at work.  I cut out some toxic people from my life too which felt extremely liberating.

My point:  I did everything seemingly right but I had a flare up nonetheless.  I was just tired out.  I did too much and my body rebelled.  What’s really hard is that I know to people who don’t know me well, I look pretty healthy.  I’m young and not toooooo overweight.  I think it’s hard for people to understand that you can look great on the outside but feel shitty on the inside.  However, when I think about it….I must not look too healthy all the time.  I’ve had strangers offer to help me carry my groceries and insist on having me do the drive through pick-up.  Some days I lean heavily on the shopping cart and limp along.  Or days when my elbows and arms ache so bad, I hold them close to my body and have a hard time picking up the littlest thing.  So I guess when I think about it, there are people who intuitively pay attention to body language more than others.  Those are the kinds of people who pick up on this stuff.

So lesson learned.  I can’t always control when a flare up occurs.  Gotcha.  I’ll keep that in mind.

Posted in Rheumatoid Arthritis, Health | 2 Comments »