I was diagnosed with RA about a week ago. I'm still devastated and very scared by all this. I've always had a very tough time fighting off infections and with getting infections and being sick a lot along with other health conditions causing me severe pain and/or putting my life in severe danger. I have just went to the ER two days ago and have not been able to pay the bill from the last time that I went not too long ago. I had an unusually severe migraine, had been throwing up for two day, and having swollen knuckles that I got told to follow up with a specialist with. I'm hurting very badly lately, and I'm not able to get around very well because I'm on crutches because of a badly sprained ankle. Both knees are terribly bad right now. I have been having problems with dangerously bad hypoglycemia, fibromyalgia, severe daily migraines, panic attacks, female issues with severely burning pain on my ovaries, severe GI problems, and now all this. Every night I just pray so hard that all this pain can just go away and that I won't get any sicker. I spend every waking moment hoping that things will get better. Things haven't been getting any better lately. I recently was having a lot of knee pain and noticed that there are cyst like bumps all over my shin. There are some on my arm too. There are a whole lot of them, and it hurts to touch them like a bad bruise. I'm really scared because with the way things are going, it's probably something serious. I've been so sick for so long, and I'm exhausted. I wish my life was better than this because I feel like it's really gone downhill drastically. My family seems to think I'm a chronic over-exaggerater, but I've been through so much that they don't even know about. I tried to explain to them what I'm going through. I'm losing my insurance through the state and have to sign up for insurance on my own. I'm not even making end's meet. I live with my grandparents' house, and I can't even afford to make it on my own. I have to work part time, and I probably am not going to be able to afford to pay for one of my hospital bills now. One of my family members just told me that I'd "better hold off on my RA medications" and that I'd "better stop pulling these STUNTS with going to the hospital over headaches". I don't go to the hospital unless I really need to, and furthermore they don't understand my RA is a very serious illness to have especially with all my other health conditions.
I feel like all these horribly painful disabling health problems that I have now have caused me to not be as successful in life as I wanted to be. I saw my life going so many places, and now I feel like it's going nowhere. I am a college graduate who in high school was actually valedictorian of her high school class. I wish so much I could work full time, but I am stuck with a part time job. I have trouble working now because my all my health conditions affecting me a lot of the times at work in front of everybody. My life is just so upsetting right now, and it embarrasses me. People get so judgmental if I ask for help about anything and even about the fact that I'm unable to live on my own due to my health conditions. It's definitely not my fault, and I wish so hard I could change that, but I can't. They don't get that because it's not happening to them. I'm so scared right now and stuck at home in an ice storm with little emotional support from my family members through this. I haven't even mentioned the bumps because all I'll hear is that they think it's nothing and roll their eyes. All my family members are like that when it comes to my health issues, and I'm not like that towards any of them. I guess I just have so many that it's kind of hard for them to understand. It's not that I don't love my family members, but they usually don't offer very much support emotionally for my health conditions. I just wish I had a little of that because I'm just someone who really needs it when it comes to this. I'm just very terrified right now because of these new symptoms and feeling very frustrated right now.