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Does rheumatoid arthritis mean you have to scuttle your dreams for the future? I think you know my short answer to this, but… let’s dive into the details in my new column for HealthCentral:

“When I was a little girl, I had high-flying dreams and they had very little to do with my juvenile arthritis, a childhood illness similar to rheumatoid arthritis (RA).

First, I wanted to be a ballerina and practiced dance moves on my parents’ Persian rug. Then I watched Jacques Cousteau and his crew of marine biologists diving in waters all over the world and scuttled the dancing dream in favor of serving on his ship, the Calypso, and spending much of my life under water.

But at age 16, I went home after a two-year hospital stay in a power wheelchair, trailing recommendations from my then-medical team to lower my expectations of life to those resembling a turnip’s. Because of the disease, y’know.

It would be easy to dismiss this as a function of attitudes in a land and time far away from now. But these perceptions persist, if not in others, then certainly in ourselves. It’s a strange thing, this shift in assumption and expectation. The minute you get a diagnosis of chronic illness, it’s as if the rug is pulled out from under you. Your future, which had just shone with possibility, now seems dull, hopeless, and framed in less-than.

Do you really have to give it all up and accept a life of sitting on the sidelines? No. Not by a long shot. The key is to adapt and change your approach. But more on that in a bit. First, let’s take a look at the obstacles.”

Read the rest of my column on following your dreams with RA on HealthCentral.