Arthritis Mom

I'm mentally preparing for this evenings activities. I'm lucky that my husband does not often travel on Thursday's, when he has to and especially during little league season, it's crazy! I have already gotten one child successfully off to school, fed the babies twice (4 bottles plus table food), changed 5 diapers, started laundry and showered. So I am off to a good start. If the swelling goes down in my foot I will be ready, if not I might be doing this all in slippers. Below is what the evening will look like. Can you imagine if I had to hold down a job too?

3:30pm Stepsons arrive home (my daughter is going to a friends house after school and will get a ride to baseball game later)

4:30-4:45pm Load up car with everything everyone needs including sports equipment, musical instrument, music bag, school bags, diaper bag and bag of toys and blankets, plus two babies

5:00pm Drop 11 yo at tutor

5:15pm Drop uniform and equipment at 7 yo's friends house where she is playing, thank friends mom for taking her to baseball game

5:30pm Pick up dinner on the run

5:45pm Drop 14 yo off with music instructor for ride to band rehearsal

6:00pm Pick 11 yo up from tutor

6:10pm Drop 11 yo off for baseball practice that started 10 minutes before

6:15pm Arrive at 7 yo baseball game that started 15 minutes before, watch game, feed babies, change diapers, play with babies

7:30pm Game ends, pack up babies, blanket, toys, etc.

7:45pm Arrive at 11 yo baseball practice

8:15pm Pray practice is almost over

8:30pm Arrive home

8:30-9:30pm Make sure homework gets finished, instruments are practiced, bathe babies and put them to bed, clean up, do laundry, send older kids to bed

9:30pm Collapse

I was searching around for information on the age people typically get rheuamtoid arthritis for this blog post, and I found this which I did not know: "RA develops more often than expected the year after giving birth."

Well that certainly explains a lot! I knew that 75% of women with rheumatoid arthritis go into remission during pregnancy and that it typically comes back like a train wreck a few weeks or months post-partum. My rheumatoid arthritis did not go into remission although I had a fairly easy first trimester and I did get a break for a few weeks after the births. I did not know the train would keep popping and running me over for a year or so.

I take some comfort in knowing this is common. It means I'm not the only one, and that always feels good (sorry for those of you who have to suffer along with me). And because it says "in the first year after birth" it means that at some point in the not too distant future I can go back to my normal RA life health where the drugs do their job.

What I was going to post about, before I found that tidbit above, was a request. I am throwing this out there to anyone who wants to take up this cause. As the population ages there are more and more gadgets on the market that help with daily living when you have difficulty gripping, doing housework, preparing meals, etc. You know, all those Good Grips products. Because rheumatoid arthritis can hit women of childbearing age, I think we need a line of arthritis mom friendly products. Here's my initial list.

Diaper changing machine or at least something to keep the babies from kicking me in the wrist and wrangling away while I change their diapers. It ends up looking like I'm on the losing side of a wrestling match. If I can't have a machine, then something to keep them from flipping over and trying to get away. And perhaps something to keep one baby from rolling over and smacking the other baby or from putting a foot in the other one's dirty diaper. If not that, then at least something to squeeze the diaper cream for me, perhaps something that would also work on my shampoo bottle.

Automatic snapper for those tiny snaps on baby clothes. Until this one is invented I've started snapping every other snap on bad RA days.

Robot arm to lift babies out of the crib on bad RA days. Some people worry about their kids learning to crawl out of the cribs themselves, this arthritis mom is look forward to that day.

Infant car seat release to help me remove the seats from the base without having to simultaneously squeeze hard, pull and lift over 20 lbs in an awkward position. I need something that fits in my pocket or is attached to the seat. Right now my coping mechanisms are called Husband and Stepsons but it's hard to take them everywhere I need to go.

Adjustable shoes. I know they exist. But I'm 37 years old, I need attractive shoes. I don't want shoes that look like my grandma's slippers, and I'd like buy them without having to take out a loan first. An area they specifically need to expand is the bottom - what is up with the inside/bottom of the foot swelling anyway, it's incredibly bothersome.

Most importantly, I really need medicine bottles that the kids can't open but that I can.