Where has Missy Been? - Diagnosed with Rheumatoid Arthritis

So you're probably all wondering what became of Missy with her lovely gardens and houseplants. We've had some pretty good rain storms and the cold has set in here. Along with rain and cold comes Missy's reminder...achey bones. Around here we don't get a lot of rain, but when we do everyone is so glad! I am too...when I can think past the pain. When I heard rain drops and started crying a few weeks ago, I knew it was time to do something about it.

I consider myself an emotionally strong girl, generally, so when tears come, something really is wrong. I have an aunt who is a Registered Nurse. She also has a BlackBerry. I got on my BlackBerry and sent her a message telling her that I was taking the highest recommended dosage of ibuprofen and it wasn't even taking the edge off the pain. Her reply? "You need some very expensive testing." Nice of her to be honest, right? I'm always fretting about how much things cost. After giving it a few days thought and only feeling worse, I decided she was right. She told me to look a few things up on the internet. My symptoms all matched up with what she told me she thought I had: Rheumatoid Arthritis. Click on the picture below to read about it on MedicineNet:



A 21 year old girl doesn't just accept that she has a chronic debilitating illness like as if she'd just been told that the cookie jar was empty. It's a big deal! I finally scheduled an appointment with my local doctor. She's a really nice lady. After listening to my symptoms and feeling my joints she said, "She's got to have it."

She ordered a bunch of tests and told me to take lots of things. Now we're waiting for the results in order to know what to do next. In the mean time I have good days surrounded by bad days, I have bad days with bits of good mixed in, and good days with bits of bad mixed in.

You know how it is when you go to the doctor? You almost feel like it made things worse, but really, why did you go to the doctor? Because it wasn't getting any better, and just because you went to the doctor doesn't mean it's suddenly going to get better.

So how does an avid gardener and houseplant lover keep up with a hobby like that when they can barely get around? Let's take a spin around my bedroom.

When my wrists don't hurt too bad, there's nothing stopping me from reading. I have a little collection of gardening books and magazines in my bookcase:

You can probably guess my hobby by looking at my dresser. Butterfly Thermometer/Clock, Flower Vase, Rose Lamp, Rose Clock, Flowery Jewelery Box, and a Little Hand Crafted Birdhouse I made once:

I'm learning Spanish, and I don't see why I can't mix it in with what I already enjoy. Thus, I got this Spanish book on the Life Cycle of the Earth Worm:

And my Calendar with beautiful flowers every month:

First glance at my bookcase would make you think, 'Yep! This lady is sick!':

But, I haven't lost sight of the things I love which is shown by these plastic Cosmos hidden amongst all the pills (And yes, I need to dust!):

I also have my beautiful plant shelf that I've shown in other posts. My bedroom looks very "gardeny" as a whole, so nope! It's not going away any time soon. Rheumatoid Arthritis or not I'm still a gardener at heart!

Yes, I've accepted and rejected the diagnostic about 150 thousand times in the last few weeks, but I still have the old reminder, pain. I've been so glad for things like Ibuprofen, Tylenol Arthritis, Lavender Oil to soak in, and all my wonderful friends and associates. I looked back in my old chats with my co-workers. I was mentioning my knees in April of 09 and talked about my achey bones through the winter of last year and into this year. It was interesting because I kind of felt like it was a little "all the sudden". Apparently, it was not.

Spiffing-Up the Plant Shelf

When you walk in your bedroom and see something as beautiful as this lovely African Violet...

...on your lovely plant shelf...

...you probably won't notice that it's incomplete. This "Papaya Grove" as I like to call it, needs repotted:

I grew that from seed. We got a papaya and I planted all the seeds from it thinking maybe a few would come up. I think they all came up...it just took about 4 months for them to sprout! This Impatiens plant also needs re-potted:

But I think the last thing you're going to notice is how dirty the shelf is:

It's amazing how much dust we collect in our homes without noticing. Well, I went ahead and re-potted the Papaya Grove:

And I re-potted the Impatiens:

I really like Black Gold brand Water Hold Cocoblend Potting Soil. If I buy it, that's what I get and nothing else. I have used other kinds that people have given me, but I never like them as well. I taped the bag shut after I got through potting up those plants. I don't want to imagine what my "Hermanita" (Pronounced like air-mon-eat-ah - It's the Spanish version of "Sis") would do when she found a whole big bag of dirt here nice and handy in my bedroom!

Next I piled all my plants around the room while I cleaned the shelf:

This on the wall is where the tomato seed package got wet and stuck to the wall when I was sprouting them this spring:

It was really stuck on there good too:

Look how nice the shelf looks now:

Isn't this most lovely now?

That plant on the left hand side is a few of the Papaya seedlings I re-potted for one of my co-workers who asked me for some. I think you'll agree that this shelf looks much more appealing to the eye than it's sister shelf across the room:

One of these days I'm going to come up with some fancy way to make those dark black cords not stand out so much against the bright white of the rest of the room. Feel free to drop me some ideas on that one!