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Rheumatoid ArthritisArrow
Disease duration 16-20 years
Interview 47  

Interview 47

Sex: Male
Background: Partner: Educationalist (full time), married with three children.
Brief outline:Partner was diagnosed with RA at 33 has had the disease for 17 years.


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House adaptations have been made gradually so his wife is able to cope.

 



Yes, I will because I think had this been a road accident and there had been massive changes overnight then I think your adjustment is overnight and the facilities and resources that you utilise within a domestic environment would have to be a radical change whereas I think you learn to cope with a changing scenario that this disease presents to you in terms of the utilities that you may use around the house, my wife can cope at the moment with the stairs but we do realise that either we're gonna move to a bungalow one day or to install a stair-lift and it's the resources around the house that may need modification eventually we, you cope.

You learn to cope on a daily basis and you adjust that coping and capability very slowly because the dis… the effect of the disease is not immediate but you get to a point then when you realise that you are going to have to change, you know we're considering when we change the bathroom considering the height of the toilet [to raise that level so that you know it's not quite so low to get on and off the toilet, that we replace the bath with a shower, or that we put a shower cubicle along side the bath, so there's some independence there and the way that you would come into the house, we've made an extra entrance to the house with a less severe stepping in and also better access to the garden so that we, you know, we can share and do all the things around the house that, you know, we always wanted to do. But the, it's a gradual change not a step change. It's that, that ramping that we talked about. 
Rheumatoid arthritis
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