TIME Magazine: Rheumatoid Arthritis, The Other Crippling Joint Disease

As debilitating as osteoarthritis can be, it at least develops gradually. That may not seem like much consolation until you consider the other arthritis—rheumatoid arthritis—which in severe cases can hit as fast and hard as a freight train. "People who are jogging one day," says Dr. Stanley Cohen of Dallas' St. Paul Medical Center, "can't get out of bed two weeks later."

this is the disease that i've got.

i am really amazingly lucky. it's been fourteen years since i was diagnosed. i finished high school, and then college, and now i'm holding down a responsible full time job and volunteering in my copious free time. i tolerate the meds well, and they're working for me. and all of that? luck. it's not that i have a relatively mild case because i'm a good person. it's luck.