Another day in aching bones…

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File under the joys of living with Reactive Arthritis. It’s 6pm and I am absolutely exhausted. Partially this is the result of a poor night’s sleep (caused in part by being in pain), and mostly it is the result of the big day I had.

Well, actually it wasn’t that big at all, but it demonstrates how small things shrink to big asks when you are arthritic.

10:20am – Trying to find a park in the city, I get lucky - fortunately - and find a park only half a block away from my destination.
10:30am – Meet up with the friend of a friend in a café. He used to be afflicted with a similar ailment to my own, but – after 5 or so years – managed to kick it. It’s great talking to him as (a) he gives me hope and (b) he gives me some good treatment ideas.
11:45am – Move my car to another car park so as not to exceed the 2 hour max time limit (my car already has a big blue chalk mark on the tire to remind me of this). Once again I am lucky – I get a car park close(ish) to where I need to go.
11:50am – Blood sugar levels low – I walk a few blocks to find somewhere which sells some food I can eat (chips).
12:10pm – I walk a couple of blocks to my next meeting for the day (which was close to the first). The meeting – which is about a server transfer affecting a website I manage (voluntarily) for a sports club – has been moved down the road. Which leads to another couple of blocks walk (power hobbling this time as I am late).
1:30pm – Walk back to car – drive up to university.
2:00pm – Lucky again, a car park close to the university means only a few hundred metres walk to hand in my timesheets for the last few weeks. Then back again to the car and then home. Where I have spent the afternoon working a little bit on a paper and distracting myself on Harry’s Place.
6:00pm – Exhausted total distance walked in the day: probably less than a kilometre. But it feels like 10kms.