Easy Smile: Living — and Thriving — with Rheumatoid Arthritis,Running a home, raising children, and holding down a job, while blessings, can sap any woman by the end of the day. Imagine accomplishing all that while trapped in a body stiff with rheumatoid arthritis. Here’s one woman’s story of how she does exactly that — and keeps a smile on her face.
Dalia often refers to RA as an “unwelcome guest” — she has no choice but to care for her condition carefully or she will be wracked with pain and fatigue stuck flat on her back. It’s not easy; her life is littered with bad days when she is confined to bed and cannot accomplish even the simplest task.
Although most people with RA experience a gradual onset of the condition it snuck up on Dalia unexpectedly. “People always want to know — did I see it coming? Were there warning signs for years beforehand? Honestly no. I felt terrific was always in good health and physically fit ” Dalia shares. Even her earliest symptoms appeared benign at first.
“Shortly after my baby’s birth I had that sore all over feeling but most mothers can relate — giving birth can make you feel like that and I had been very busy setting up the nursery before he came home so I thought maybe I just overdid it. It wasn’t until I woke up that morning and really couldn’t move at all that I realized that something was seriously wrong with me.”
Despite the debilitating effects of RA (see sidebar) Dalia is a prime example of someone who truly lives with the condition. She refuses to see herself as a sick woman. Instead she’s just a regular mom at the PTA meetings and shul dinner. Only her family and friends know the burden she’s struggled with for the past decade. Dalia works full time and actively raises five talented children shuttling them to a host of extracurricular activities. A devoted wife and homemaker Dalia invites Shabbos guests creates homemade costumes for her daughter for Purim and tackles the arduous job of cleaning her home for Pesach.
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