I have always liked the phase,

The whole is greater than the sum of its parts. – Aristotle

The pieces of anything, whether it be a set of Lego, ingredients for a pie, flowers for an arrangement laying on a table, or the soft fleshy pieces of a person, are only the that – pieces, until you add them all together and create something masterful. While one could argue a person comes ‘fully assembled’, our experiences, thoughts, and feelings truly make us who we are. People are always excited to see a child grow up so we can see who they become. Even as we go through life, we change, grow, and evolve (at least we should). All my parts put together are better, my mind, body, and (dare I say) spirit have come together to make a well-rounded individual.

A very, very long time ago – really – when I was nineteen, I started having trouble with one of my eyes. The vision got all cloudy and weird. It was persistent enough that I sought medical treatment. The medi-centre doctor told me I had a ‘cold’ in my eye, gave me something for it, and sent me on my way. Why do I remember this 30 years later? Because one does not get colds in one’s eye, it struck me as the most ridiculous thing I’d ever heard of. But I followed her advice, took the medication, and waited for it to clear up.

It did not clear up. I made an appointment to see my former family doctor. I trusted him. I drove the 45 minutes to see him. It was not a cold and while he was not exactly sure what it was (he actually did things like checked for scratches on my cornea) he knew it was related to something happening in my eye and sent me to an eye specialist in the city. Not a week later, NOW. I literally drove from his office back to the urgent eye clinic. Vision is not something to be messed with.

Uveitis. In not one, but now both eyes. It was odd that my eyes were not red, nor painful, as evidently, this condition is usually very painful. They asked a bunch of questions, poked my hands, dilated my eyes (and it was sunny out), gave me a bunch of eye drops, and sent me on my way… To the lab for a battery of blood tests. “Normal” people don’t get uveitis, not this bad, not in both eyes, unless they have an underlying autoimmune condition.

Stop. The. Bus. What? The infection in the coloured part of my eye was a hallmark indicator of an autoimmune disease. This was back before the internet, back before cellphone cameras, back before knowledge was at everyone’s fingertips. If I had questions, I had to ask them now. Naturally, my mind went blank. I left to get the tests done and wait.

I got a call back two of the tests were really high, but they only indicated general inflammation in the body. That could indicate anything from some kind of other autoimmune disease, like Lupus, but the one they use to determine Rheumatoid Arthritis was negative. Good luck, they said. Come back if the eye didn’t clear up.

Things got much, much worse after my back surgery in 2003. While I had managed to start walking and feeling a lot better, my body didn’t seem to like that much, and my joints started to hurt.

I was the healthiest I’d been in a long time, but my eyes were being difficult. With my thirtieth birthday looming, I went to an optometrist with my complaints. Telling him there were more floaters, cloudy vision, and that I was having difficulty seeing, especially in the dark and at dawn and dusk. He told me, as he leaned on his eye machine, smacking his gum, “Well, you are getting older. The vitreous liquid starts to detach more and is causing you problems. You just have to get used to it.” He sent me on my way.

About a week later, one dark winter’s morning, I was driving up a hill on my way to work. I did the drive every morning, but this morning? I lost sight of the road and drove into oncoming traffic. Thank all things lucky, and car horns, I was able to get back where I needed, the cars on the other side could swerve, and no one was hurt. I got to work, called the nearest ophthalmologist, and took the first available appointment. I had a severe uveitis. Very severe, enough I have permanent vision deterioration in my right eye. This doctor took me on, and in conjunction with my general practitioner, they worked for the next nine months getting to the route of what was going on.

I felt like a human guinea pic. Poked, prodded, examined. Just to do it all again. They knew something wasn’t right, but what? They had suspicions, but a diagnosis was just out of reach. Finally, I had an appointment with a rheumatologist for late July the year I turned thirty-one. By this point, my joints were so swollen and sore, I was having trouble walking, but being overweight and having always had trouble with my knees, I figured they two were linked, so I generally hid the pain and tried to carry on as normal. It didn’t explain my fingers, elbows, or shoulder, but things we do don’t always make sense.

She poked me, asked some questions. Looked me over.

“You don’t have arthritis. You are just fat.” she told me. “I will send a report to your doctor.”

Now, I wish I could say I am exaggerating, but I am not. There are moments in your life that you don’t forget. Birth of a child, wedding, death of a loved one. Being called fat, point blank, by a medical professional, is one of them. She had a very thick accent, so I had to have her repeat it. I’d heard right the first time.

But the story doesn’t end here. Some ten days after this appointment, I woke up at about 2am. My husband worked out of town at the time, and I remember trying to roll over in bed, and I couldn’t. The pain from my knees was like nothing I’d ever experienced before. My left shoulder too, blinding. I finally got out of bed, but the walk to the kitchen to get some kind of pain medication took me nearly an hour.

I called my husband home, and he took me to the emergency room, I needed something else for pain. My knees were three times their normal size. They aspirated several cups of fluid off my knees and sent it for testing (for synovial fluid, which would confirm, or rule out, rheumatoid arthritis). They examined my shoulder as well, as it too was filled with fluid. Same with several fingers.

By the emergency room doctor’s diagnosis, it was a textbook case, and he was surprised the rheumatologist hadn’t diagnosed me. The fluid tests came back 100% positive. He wrote her a letter and would send off his findings. They gave me something (else) for pain and away we went. I was off work for a week because I could hardly walk.

A few days later, I was back in her office. Reluctantly, she diagnosed me as having Rheumatoid arthritis because by the book I had a textbook case. Three or more major joints (knee, shoulder, or hip) must be affected. I felt vindicated. She remained my doctor, until we decided to have our son less than a year later. I then fired her, and my family doctor managed my care until our son was two.

I now have the most amazing rheumatologist on the planet. He is keen on patients advocating for themselves, always listens, and with whom I wouldn’t have my arthritis as reasonably controlled as it is.