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This month on MyRACentral, we talk about death and dying, the unmentionable:

“Twice, rheumatoid arthritis has tried to kill me.

I was 12, almost 13, the first time, when it went systemic and starting attacking my heart and my spleen and there was a bad case of pneumonia, as well. I don’t remember much, just moments of memory, strung together with wide spaces in between. Waking up to see my father sitting by my bed, elbows on his knees, looking down on the floor and then falling into sleep again. The daily chest x-ray, barely able to sit on my own for the 30 seconds before the nurse came back into the room to help me. Surreal interactions with people I didn’t know that in retrospect was a fever delirium. And afterwards, learning to walk again, trying to pull myself up two steps in the physiotherapy department, weak as a kitten.”

You can read the rest here.