“No.” He chuckled. “Congenital. Or possibly hereditary.” I sighed in relief, finding at least a little solace in his answer, and I found myself wondering what an arthritic vagina would even look like. He assured me that my genitals would be just fine, but honestly he looked a tiny bit alarmed. Probably because he’d never thought to research arthritis of the vagina. But they should. So far I’ve had arthritis in all fingers, my neck, arms, legs, feet, and in one ear. I can only assume vaginal arthritis is lurking right around the corner, waiting to strike when you least suspect it. Which is always, really. No one ever expects vaginal arthritis.1
My doctor explained that I had a rare form of the disease called polyarthritis, which meant that instead of staying in a single place, the arthritis jumps around from body part to body part on an almost daily basis. One day I’ll wake up with an ankle so swollen it looks like I’m wearing a single nude leg warmer stuffed with apples. The next day my ankle will be fine, but I won’t be able to move my left shoulder without wanting to stab a kitten. The best way I can describe it is that every night I go to bed knowing that Freddy Krueger will be waiting to beat the shit out of me with a baseball bat, and that I’ll wake up with whatever horrific injuries he’s inflicted. Except that this isn’t a movie about Elm Street and it’s my life. Plus, Johnny Depp isn’t there. So it sucks in a myriad of ways.
The doctor was right about there being a lot of treatment options, but I was disappointed to find that none of them included medically prescribed Segways, or personal monkey butlers to help you open pickle jars. Instead I was given a drug that starts with “meth-” and ends with “your-hair-will-fall-out-and-you-will-never-stop-vomiting-if-you-don’t-take-a-daily-antidote,” because apparently it’s also a chemo drug. Interestingly enough, one of the many side effects of the drug is that even though it’s a drug designed to battle cancer, IT FUCKING CAUSES CANCER. The doctor explained that the drug-induced cancer happened only in rare cases, but considering that I was just diagnosed with one of the rarest forms of a rare disease to begin with, it seemed like this was exactly the kind of lottery I should be avoiding. He convinced me it was worth the risks, but cautioned me not to panic when the warning label on the medicine would scare the shit out of me. He was right. It said, “Holy shit, MOTHERFUCKER. YOU ARE GOING TO FUCKING DIE.”2 I’m just paraphrasing, but that’s the gist. Also, in my head it sounded exactly like Samuel L. Jackson, so I was scared, but still entertained.
And what really sucks is that NO ONE EVEN KNOWS WHY THIS DRUG WORKS. They’re guessing it may work because it fucks up your immune system and keeps cells from growing properly, so your body attacks your immune system instead of your joints. Because who needs a working immune system when you have an autoimmune disease that makes you so sick that your best option is to take a drug that can kill you? Basically it’s like being stabbed in the neck to take your mind off your stubbed toe. Still, the drugs seem to help somewhat, so I take them and try not to imagine what it would be like without them.
I’ve had arthritis for years now, and sometimes it’s gone, and sometimes I’m bedridden, but either way I’m constantly having to go in for blood work and X-rays, and the best news that the doctor can give me is that my blood has not turned toxic and that there are “no obvious deformities yet.” That’s how you know you’re fucked. When a medical professional tries to give you a high five because you’re not as deformed as they expected.
I muddled through the first few years, always hoping that I’d suddenly find out that I’d been cured.
“I don’t understand,” I told my doctor. “I’ve been taking various treatments for years and I still hurt.”
“It’s easy to get discouraged,” he said gently, “but you have to keep in mind that you have a degenerative disease.”
“Yes, but I thought I’d be better by now.”
“Ah,” said my doctor. “I think maybe you just don’t understand what ‘degenerative’ means.”
Awesome. I was not getting cured and my vocabulary skills were being questioned.
When my latest blood test came back, the doctor said it was no surprise that I was in a lot of pain, since my results showed an arthritis “double positive.” I wasn’t sure what that meant, but I suspect it means that my arthritis is an overachiever.
I started taking herbal supplements and giant fish oil pills every day, and when Victor complained that I was just throwing money away, I pointed out that fish oil is supposed to be good for your joints, because fish are . . . well lubricated, I guess? He stared at me, perplexed at my reasoning.
“Well, it can’t hurt,” I said. “You almost never see a fish with bad ankles. Or . . . you know . . . limping.”
“I think someone just sold you a bill of goods. Didn’t they used to sell fish oil back in the eighteen hundreds to suckers?”
“No,” I answered. “That was snake oil. Although I have always wondered how you get oil from a snake. It seems like a lot of trouble to go through for something that didn’t work anyway. Imagine how many people were getting bitten each day trying to oil snakes.”
“What are you talking about? You don’t oil snakes.”