Home Community Member Stories Brenda

Brenda

grams941949@comcast.net

Hi, my name is Brenda Prickett, I have put off writing my story for along time. My children tell me I don't know any short stories ,but I will try to be as brief as possible.

I have suffered with aches for no reasons and "sprains" all my life, so when the pains began to get worse, I thought it was a part of getting older. In 1982, in the spring, I got a really bad cold, the doctor in hind sight says it might have been strep throat that turned into rheumatic fever. Whatever it was it kept me in bed for days and life was never the same.

At 33, I had 6 children and a husband, and no longer any energy to do anything. At that time, I heard of chronic-fatigue and that seemed to fit the bill. I went to the Doctor, who told me, she could find nothing wrong and prescribed me Valium.

I dragged through the days and nights, taking care of my family. My husband, had retired from the Marine Corps by then and having found another job in civilian life was able to provide for us with me working( which would have been Impossible) There were some days even then when getting out of bed was impossible. First, it would be about once every six months; then every two. They increased until 1996, when getting out of bed normally was forgotten.

My mother was sure there was someone to help me. Doctor after Doctor found nothing wrong. "Get a job" they said "you have too much time, to sit and worry." I did get a job after my husband died in 1991. I loved working. I sit at my sewing machine at the flag company and would sew away, not thinking about anything. But when I tried to stand up, the pain and stiffness would hit me like a lightning bolt. In late 95 my mother died and the pain that had been mostly in my knees and hips, moved into my hands elbows and shoulders. I could no longer write or even hold a fork to eat. I spent my day crying in bed. I longed for the days when it was only the shower I couldn't turn on, or a jar of mayonnaise I couldn't open.

On the 1st day of September, 1996, my right thigh started leaking a fluid. By that time, I didn't care. My body had turned on me worse than any enemy ever could have, and what happened to it was something separate from who I was. By the 5th.I knew I was dying, still I refused to go to the hospital. Finally God was going to give me what I had been asking for, who was I to interfere.

On the 6th I was barely conscious. It was my Mother's birthday. She must have been working on me to do something like she always had; because I told my daughter to call my sister to go with me to the hospital.

I wasn't expected to make it through the night. After an operation that removed the poison from my leg, I still had a one in a 1000 chance of living. Let's see I can't hit the lottery for nothing, but I contracted a one in a million chance disease (necrotizing fasciitis) without leaving the house and I live another day.

The Doctor asked me how I had stood the pain. I told him that was nothing compared to the pain I experience every minute of the day. Life was good and bad in the hospital. They gave me strong pain medicine that kept me from feeling anything, except the daily terrors of packing the inside of my leg with gauze.

Like most of you, when they did the RA tests it was off the charts. Still, there was another year before the right medicine was found. Time after time the doctors would take my hands that now looked like bird talons and mash them to see how bad the arthritis was in them.

At my first visit to the rheumatologist they ask what would you like to do most, I said walk would be good, hold my grandchildren, draw and paint like I used to, but most of all I would like to hold a fork to eat or write a letter. I would like to go on record here as saying, I would like to thank God for the person who came up with using Methotrexate for RA. It has changed my life from a living hell to a working possibility.

Slowly,the swelling being to drain from my body with each weekly treatment. I was hurting as much. Then I begin to start enjoying life again. I could hold that pencil, I could feed myself. I could hold my grandbaby.

In the last five years since then, I have had many things to deal with; blood clots, diabetes, colon abscesses, gall bladder removal, as well as my daughter finding out she has lupus. Depression has come along with all the other things; and what makes me the most depressed is the possibility that I have passed this on to her.

Still, through all of these things including the drowning death of my grandson last summer,I am glad to be here. I take each day as it comes, hoping for the best. I have tried to prepare for the worst, but that only leads to anxiety.

I told you I didn't know any short stories.