Interview 33  

Interview 33

Age at Interview: 21
Sex: Female
Age at Diagnosis: 12
Background: Student, single, no children. Lives at home with mother.

Brief outline:Juvenile chronic arthritis diagnosed 1990. Initially NSAIDs, then methotrexate but nausea & then oral steroids from age 15. Finger tendon repair & hip replacement (01) Currently Anti-TNF Humira injected 2/month, indometacin, co-codamol & Lansoprazole.


To watch or read an interview clip, click on the heading that interests you. Either a video,audio recording or text will open, depending on the clip
To close transcript boxes, click here
To print the interview’s text, click here
She felt depressed for much of secondary school but has now learnt to focus on a series of goals and feels much more positive.

 



Yeah, it has in, I went through a very I think, I've already mentioned quite a negative phase, I suppose I would say. I think, 'cos I used to feel depressed but would people would say, you know, “You can't be depressed when you're, you know, 13, 14 years old”. Which I suppose is true but in another sense, you know, when you've got, when you're, you've got a year and a half off school because of this neck pain that won't go away I don't know what else you would call it if it's not depression. I used to feel quite negative and I used to you do go through the period where you question why and you still, I always get it sometimes, I get one of those days where, it's usually that little thing, that one little thing that pushes you over and it'll be something like, you're getting something out of the fridge and you'll drop it and that will just be the last thing that you can bear to put up with and then you sort of, I tend to just flop [Laughs] against the wall or sit down. 
 
And I went through that for quite a long time I think. Probably all the way through secondary school I felt quite oh, it's difficult to really describe it. You feel, I suppose quite bruised in a way and you feel like you're just getting knocked about by the disease one way or another. It's, there's always something, there's always a joint that hurts. You get rid of, I got rid of my hip problem and then my left knee started to hurt and it's it feels like it bounces from one part to another and when, when you don't have anything else to focus on, I'm one of those people that have to have something else to focus on, and, which I didn't in secondary school because really you're not thinking about career at that age, you're just, you're supposed to be having fun and, and growing up and I wasn't. I didn't feel that I was really doing that, I felt like I'd already grown up because I had to grow up quite quickly and deal with doctors and injections and the possibility of operations and the whole hospital thing. And grow up in the sense that I had to look after my body. I couldn't, I can't be spontaneous, I have to have tablets with me every night and you lose those things, so you grow up quite quickly. 
 
And I felt that in between that growing up time and actually the time that I was allowed to be an adult I didn't have much else to do, much else to think about and it, and it does get you down quite a bit. And even though you're with your friends sometimes and you, you're having a good time I've always felt like they, they can see you with your arthritis but the way they deal with it is, I should imagine this is how I deal with things, they go home and then they, they focus on something else and they forget about it. And I know that they love me, you know, they're my family and my parents and my friends but then they forget about it. But I come home and I'm, and I'm still doing it, I'm still living with it. And so for other people it's easier to deal with than it is for me obviously, because I've still got it and I'm always going to have it and I used to feel that it was, I wish that I could do that. I wished that I could go home and put it away, put it to the side and just not have it and so that was quite difficult to get through. I don't really know how I got through that actually, that was I used to go through those feelings when I'd had my hip done because I used to see, people would come and see me and, and they'd be happy and they'd be, you know, keeping me up but I could tell that they were sort of a little bit frightened for me and obviously sad for me that I was in, it wasn't really pain it was just discomfort. And, I used to think I wish I could do, do what they're doing at home and put it away and not have to deal with it.
 
And, but I got through that somehow. I think what I did was I just decided that I would find something to focus on. So I think I focused on going on holiday. And then I came back from my holiday and I focused on doing my maths and then I did that and now I'm focusing on my career and it's not that I'm sort of running away or burying the feelings but on focusing on something else you do have time to deal with the issues. I do feel a lot better about it now because the more people I meet the more they say, “Yeah, yeah I, you could be a PA, you'd be a really good PA. You know, you can tell just from speaking to you that you're quite organised.” And when they say things like that it really does help and it really does make you feel, “Yeah, yeah, I could do it.” 

Rheumatoid arthritis
   Support our work

Mail to a friend

Send