I feel like Jeff Goldblum in The Fly

A few months ago I could turn keys in locks, unscrew lids from jars and hold a four-pint jug of beer in my right hand without pain. I could dash across roads in time to the traffic, make a cheese sauce whilst talking on a phone lodged between my head and shoulder and shake people by the hand without preceding it with an intuitive flinch. So it's fair to say that a few months ago I was a bit more contented with my lot. My 'condition' is still being scanned and x-rayed and drained out of me, but it's rheumatoid arthritis. Whether it's 'seronegative' or 'oligarthritis' or whatever. That's what it says on my sick note. And the letter from my consultant. And the letter from 'occupational health'. And on the front cover of this little book beside me here, part 4 of the 'Coping with ...' series. I'm just going to call it RA, which I know is a very noughties thing to do these days (Team GB?! What's that all about? Very lazy) but it's short, and writing RA reminds me of my pre-teen diaries when I would abbreviate the names of all the girls I fancied to just their initials, therefore should any of my friends happen to find my hormonal scribblings they'd never be able to break such an ingenious code. But they probably would have discovered that I masturbated three times a day.

I digress. So this is basically what you're going to get. Me & RA and our adventures together. There'll be tears, laughter, very long pauses and too many profanities. I know I'm not the only one out there who's suffering from this and I know there are many people out there with far worse conditions. I'm doing this for me, for people who might want to know a little about RA and living with it, but mainly I'm doing this because I don't get out much these days and I'm fucking sick of Jeremy Kyle.

It's not like being trapped. It actually is being trapped. Everything from getting out of bed in the mornings, putting on my shoes and turning on taps is anticipated and assessed. I get out of bed like I'm trying to escape from some regrettable one-night stand, sliding my frame from out beneath the covers inch-by-inch so as not to wake the sleeping dragon with WKD breath. The top of my foot feels like Joe Pesci's gone at it with a hammer, my hand and wrist have matchstick sized splinters of hot metal where there used to be bones, the pain in my neck is a constant reminder of the warnings I refused to heed about headbanging to dodgy metal in the eighties and my knee is swollen like a forgetful bulimic. It even hurts to write this and I will stop when it gets too much. Unfortunately this may lead to my accounts seeming a little disjointed. Disjointed. See, told you there'd be laughter.

So I bought a stick this week. A nice black one with an orangey/marbley handle. I wanted one like Christopher Walken has in The Dead Zone, but couldn't remember what that looked like so I just went for the cheapest one. It's a big thing, buying a stick. At first I saw it as giving in to her, accepting this forced alliance and wearing it like a long wooden wedding ring. But I've come to like it (especially the handle!) and it's not about giving in, it's about overcoming. It's a hovercraft over a minefield, stilts through a field of cacti - if the people stare let the people stare, as a great man once said. I started some new medication this week too after the last lot they put me on - Sulphasalazine - seemed determined to not just lower my immune system, but obliterate it. So now I'm on Methatrexate, which is another Disease Modifying Antirheumatic Drug (DMARD). The way that they treat RA is to give you a drug which lowers your immune system, which may seem strange because surely it's the immune system that's supposed to keep diseases and nasty germs at bay. But when you've got RA, your immune system is no longer your friendly neighbourhood defense mechanism. For some reason (they still don't know folks so if you've got any thoughts they're all ears) your immune system starts to attack various joints in your body. Maybe one at time, maybe all at once. Maybe all over, maybe just down one side. Either way, it starts acting like a bit of cunt. And for no reason?! I mean, I've had these joints in here for what, thirty-one years? The occasional squeak out of them maybe, but they weren't too badly behaved and they didn't whimper too much when I was playing squash and cycling and masturbating three times a day (when I was younger, okay). But now, when I'm finally living the independent lifestyle I'd always dreamed of, albeit without the sexy Polish maid, massive TV and micro-brewery, it starts to attack me. I feel like Jeff Goldblum in The Fly, typing clumsily into a computer with gloved hands. It's not so bad that I keep my cock in the bathroom cabinet, but the analogy's still a strong one.

So it's kind of like that. Like a mixture of Christopher Walken and Jeff Goldblum. Which doesn't sound so bad, does it?