Fighting my Inner Tinman

This post is very personal and dear to my heart.  It is me bearing my soul, my deepest fears but feel I need to share it with you in hopes it will help someone in the same situation. This is my first and only poem i have ever written.  Everytime I read it I cry.   Please take the time to read it.  If you have RA or know someone with it I know you will relate.  Here it goes me baring my soul !

Fighting my Inner Tinman

RA what can I say? It's evil it's.... the devil in so many ways. Always lurking and waiting to strike! Could be morning ...noon or night. It has no agenda ..but will ruin yours with no warning nor mercy and try as it might ...beat you down till you feel there is no end in to the fight.

Are you a "fighter" ? You better be ,cause it will beat you down , you just wait and see! You can't let it consume you cause that it can do. So put up your dukes and get ready to do what you have to...Fight back , fight back hard for this is my life and it sure is hell isn't yours!

Now family and friends mean well when suggesting this med or that diet & such but better chance than none ...I've already tried that with no luck....if the cure was there I would've found it and such..for this I do know all too well all i want is the old me back before RA snuck in and stole my health...my life..myself and all I want is it back...back to being me...being my ole self.

No i don't mean to come off as ungrateful or impolite but I've lived a long time and put up a long fight...I have already checked out everything in this world and some of it two times maybe three ,for some kinda cure or relief but there just isn't a quick fix ...for that I know indeed ....so thank you for caring and thinking of me ...as far as my treatment .....that I will oversee.

The pain is like no other and impossible to describe ...so all i can do is just try....imagine a Tin man all rusted and shut ,unable to move , he is all bowed up. Frantically searching for some kinda cure or relief but the magic oil is quiet hard to find ...yes indeed! There is no magical pill or cure to bring me back to my old self that i wish to be....for RA is heartless and shrill...it isn't picky who it strikes next.... it will get you as a young infant a child or a teen and sometimes older for RA has no scheme. Who knows who it will get next...for it is sneaky you see....for its the devil ..the devil forever trapped within inside me.

But you say "You're too young to have Arthritis"? RA wants everyone! It cares not who it strikes at any age it...just might!
Well you say "It can't be that bad"? Have you lived with crippling pain ?
Not talking about for a moment , a day or a night....crippling pain ...for some there whole life!

"Just take a pill your being dramatic! " Till you've walked in my shoes and really felt this terrible world of hurt ....the pain both mental and physical ...till you've truly lived it....then you shouldn't say a word!! ..cause you no not the way...the way I have traveled ...it has been hard and quite scary as a matter.

Your judgement , your diets, your advice ....I don't need ,so please think twice before speaking to me...
Your understanding and trust that I'm doing everything I can is all that I ask and of course a good friend ...who listens and accepts there is no quick fix. A friend who will listen and console me ...when this battle starts getting too rough ...for your caring and love I need very much!!

RA is a beast a force to be reckoned with! How do you do it? How can you live with such pain? Simply said and put ....I have no choice I have no say..... ....this is my life it has chosen to strike but till my dying day ...RA .... I will fight!! RA may get the best of me now and then but fight it I will. .....I will fight ...I WILL BEAT YOU RA...I WILL WIN!
~Tracy Pierce~