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Showing posts from July, 2015

AWOL Blogger Reporting

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Um… hi. Remember me? I know it’s been a while since you last heard from me and I apologize. The thing is, I’m taking August off to write the next Your Life with RA book (or at least part of it) and that’s required quite a bit of work to get ready. I could go into detail, but suffice to say it’s been a lot of writing (only 4 more days…). Well, that is when Lucy doesn’t insist on the cuddle. The Boy claims he pays her in Angus roast beef to make sure. I’ve started calling her The Enforcer. (as always, click photos to embiggen) There has been so much writing that a) there hasn't been time for anything else is; and b) my brain is empty at the end of the day. I have several topics that I intend to blog about, but not the energy to actually do it. So instead, I’ll let you know what I’ve been doing in the past two weeks that hasn’t involved writing. Because I have taken some time off here and there. As you may know, Toronto hosted the Pan Am Games and we ar

PanAm Sunset

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My wonderful city has been building up to the Pan Am Games for quite some time now and they have finally arrived. I thought briefly about going to the Opening Ceremonies this past Friday, but ultimately got too cheap. I am planning to attend some of the competitions in both the Pan Am and ParaPan Am Games, though. But what to do this past weekend? We talked back and forth for a bit and decided to go to the Islands to photograph a summer sunset. Why not Friday? Why not, indeed. Off we went to catch the ferry to Ward’s Island in the low sunlight of early evening. Ward’s is a blissful, gorgeous place. It’s where the Islanders live and none of the houses are pre-fab or boring. On our way to find the perfect place to view the city, we came upon a flock of swallows, catching up on the day’s events.   When we got to our favourite place, the sun was low and rather blinding, so we wandered around the area. We played the game of which one of the gorgeous cottages

In Which I See an OT and Come up against a Stereotype

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I have swan necks. Several of them. If you have no experience with RA, you’re probably looking like one big questionmark right now. A swan neck doesn’t just belong on a beautiful bird, but is also the name of a particular deformity common in people who having had acted, untreated RA. It looks like my index finger in this photo:   As I became more involved in the RA community online, I found a lot of people wearing some beautiful rings. It wasn’t just jewelry, it turns out, but something called a ring splint . They are particularly designed to help prevent finger deformities, such as swan necks. This has never been brought up as an option for me. I’m not necessarily blaming my rheumatologists of the last 30 years — I don’t know when these types of splints were invented, so it may be a fairly recent option. In my last appointment with my current rheumatologist, I asked for a referral to an occupational therapist (OT) for an assessment. Partly to check whether ring