About a year ago I had a relative tell me that all I have to do to rid myself of
rheumatoid arthritis is have the right attitude. After the anger at the veiled accusation subsided, I couldn’t help but picture in my mind a caricature of what an optimistic visit to see my doctor would look like: As I pull up to the curb, I hop out of the car, high fiving the kind gentleman in the valet service, and skip up to the revolving doors of the University Hospital. As I walk into the lobby, I greet everyone I pass with a smile, stop to listen to the piano being played with tears of joy in my eyes, and empty my wallet into the tip jar at the coffee counter. When the receptionist greets me at Clinic 2, Internal Medicine and Rheumatology, I begin singing a song as if I were
Maria in The Sound of Music, dancing around the waiting room with my arms spread wide to the sky, my head tilted back in joyous rapture:
Warnings on syringes and biologics in the kitchen
Bright copper Humira and warm swollen extensions
Brown bottles of prednisone tied up with words of caution
These are a few of my favorite things
As I finish the first verse, a woman in a wheel chair jumps up, and twirls gracefully from one end of the room to the other while singing the next:
Cream-colored splints and crisp achy mornings
Doorbells and deliveries of this week’s injections
Wild pamphlets filled with the side effects of methotrexate
These are a few of my favorite things
Curious as to the commotion in the waiting room, my doctor pokes her head out. Her eyebrows rise in wonder, and then she joins us, hopping up on the chairs to belt out a solo in her Polish accent:
Rheumatoid factor now diminished and gone
Clinical assessment tells me positivity got it done
The future is filled with all in remission
These are a few of my favorite things
