Well, yikes!

[Guest guest]

I was trying to share a link to this group with my sister who has a friend with

severe PA

and ended up posting my email to her...with lots of non-pertinent, personal

infor. My face

is red. Apologies. Anyway to remove the message?

As a constant reader, infrequent poster, I might as well take this opportunity

to tell the

folks in this community how much solace I glean all your sharing and

information. I want

to know how manages to keep everyone straight over such long periods of

time. I

want to tell Betz that she's a wonder. I've begun to think of her as the Erma

Bombeck of

the PA-set. I fondly remember Norell sharing her experience with hammertoe

surgery

when I was worried about not healing, also her advice about comfortable shoes!

There are

too many of you to name all at once, but there are such fine people here.

Reading your

posts, I see how fortunate I am to have as little affliction as I do, to have a

job I love (even

if it leaves me so tired I have no other life during the school year), to have a

supportive

husband, and to have the resources to get needed medical care.

This is such a weird disorder, so many manifestations for different people. It

helps to

hear someone else explain their symptoms when they mirror mine...I realize

maybe I'm

not imagining. It's great when you find someone's tip for dealing with similar

problems,

things even my doctor hadn't suggested...but when I share the ideas with them,

he'll often

say " Hmm, now that does sound like a good approach. Try it and see if it

works. "

I had clawtoe surgery this summer, stopped the Arava and methylprednisone

before/

during/after, and survived without a major flare, except for my skin. It went

crazy in

places I'd never had problems with before. I'm going to try going without the

methylprednisolone (spelling kills me) if possible after all the weaning off

process.

Surgery healed very nicely and I may actually be able to put my foot into a shoe

again

when the swelling goes away. No more flip flops in winter!

Question: I keep developing one hammertoe or clawtoe or bunion after another.

Could

this be a function of PA? I'd always assumed it was bad bone structure and the

consequence of wearing fashionable shoes for my first 25 years. Now I wonder.

Yesterday, my car was rear-ended at a stop light, sending it some 50 feet down

the

highway and shredding the entire back half. While stiff, sore, black and blue,

I'm in one

piece and most thankful. Getting checked up tomorrow just for the insurance

record, but

am more afraid the jolting will set off another flare than of any other injury.

No flares needed now. School starts next week. Any other elementary teachers

out there?

Here's my new idea for this year: I bought a drafting chair with a seat height

of 30 " . I will

be able to sit teaching, roll around from table to table, and STILL be over the

heads of my

students, very necessary to command attention. It should work.

I may post only once in a blue moon, but I do keep the members of this group

in my

thoughts, sending all my best energies, as they seem needed, in your various

directions.