My brain wakes my body up early.  There’s so much to do, so many challenges to tackle, that from a logical perspective, the early bird gets the worm.

My body, on the other hand, wakes up slowly.   Stiff and swollen, I can’t physically move all that quickly until my body adjusts to this new awake state.  And it adjusts must faster if there is no alarm clock involved… From a physical perspective, the early bird gets the stiffness.

I’m an early bird, and I know that I can’t always move fast enough to get the worm.  Sometimes I’m good at reminding myself that it’s ok, that I don’t need so many worms to get through the day.  Other times, I get bummed out about all the worms (today it was cool yoga classes) that I miss out on.

So this bird has been considering being retrained as a night owl.  Unfortuntately, however, I’d still miss out on some worms (early yoga), even though I could stay up late and get some different worms (like blogging) with little oversight at all.  It’s a matter of balance, no doubt.  But the twenty-something brain doesn’t seek out balance, it just sees a worm and wants the worm–the body’s just supposed to keep up and make the brain get what it wants.  Right?

That’s not how RA-land works.   We have to accept that there are some things we just can’t do or some worms we just can’t catch.  Stiff or otherwise, chronics have to live by different axioms, different sayings.  Though, at only 10:20pm, I’m having a hard time keeping my eyes open to find anything appropriate.  Any ideas?

Pretty much every time I visit my rheumatologist, he tells me, “you look good. You’re in remission.”

Unfortunately, by the time I get to his office, I’ve usually been awaken for about three or four hours minimum and the worst of the “morning stiffness” is over.  My body has had time to adjust to itself. Sometimes I wonder if the pain stops or if I just adjust and don’t notice it as much…

So he says I’m in remission.  But when I think of remission, I think of cancer.  I think gone.  No more.

So you say I’m in remission.  But I wake up stiff.

So you say I’m in remission. But I don’t want to get up to walk to the bathroom because the pads of my feet are painfully swollen.

So you say I’m in remission.  But I swell up teaching a heated yoga class.

I want remission to mean gone.  Isn’t that what it means?  Guess not.  RA has different rules.