Last winter, at the ripe old age of 18, I was diagnosed with arthritis. When I answered the phone call from my mom, I was expecting a positive anemia result. While the bloodwork did come back positive for iron deficiency, the biggest surprise from the call was that I also tested positive for arthritis. So many questions filled my head. Where did this even come from? What does it even mean to be diagnosed with an autoimmune disease at such a young age? How will it affect my body in the future? Then came the knee dislocation. I was in my friend’s apartment over winter break when my knee gave out. I straightened my leg, and it popped back in. I lay on the ground, trying not to pass out from the pain. This episode would lead me to begin a new relationship with my body, and more specifically, my joints.
The subsequent visit to the doctor was unproductive, to say the least. Since my knee popped back into the socket on its own, she didn’t seem too concerned about the ways in which it would influence my near future. Ten months later, it still affects me. The best way I can describe the current state of my knee is that I can literally feel the bone jostling in my socket as though it’s partly detached from the rest of my body. It’s unpleasant to be going about my day, walking around, and feeling as though my knee can pop out at any moment. I’m almost constantly afraid that it will. As I learned rather harshly, one misstep can lead to a world of pain.
Dealing with my body takes up a large portion of my brain space now. I’ve always been a worrier, but now that concern is centered around my physical capabilities. It’s things like thinking about if my workout will trigger joint stiffness. It’s wearing a knee brace as a precautionary measure when I play tennis with my friends. It’s avoiding writing notes by hand because I know my wrist physically can’t handle it. It’s paying attention to how my knee and hip joints feel after walking long distances.
You grow up learning that all these parts of your body work together to allow you to live. Nothing prepares you for the knowledge that one day, there may be something within you working to make your life more painful and difficult. The hardest truth to confront is that this isn’t something that will go away. I can’t fix it like I can fix my iron deficiency by taking a pill daily. It’s also the realization that this will probably get worse the older I get. The knowledge of what may come to fruition is nerve-wracking. What activities will I have to give up in the future? How different will my life look? How different will my body look? I can’t help my concern, even if it very well may be nonsensical. I can’t help the fact that I now have to be worried about the limits of my body. There’s a very real fear that there will be a day when I am no longer able to live how I want to.
This diagnosis consistently surprises people when I talk to them about it. Arthritis is often associated with the elderly, not young adults. That assumption isn’t completely incorrect either. Only about 0.4% of teenagers will experience this disease, a very small proportion of the population. Not many young adults experience this. This can make the diagnosis feel even more isolating.
While there isn’t really a bright side to this situation, there is something that I would like to call a beige side: something with the potential to be positive. Throughout this reckoning with the diagnosis, I have become much more in tune with my body and more patient with myself, especially in regards to my physical capabilities. While there is still uncertainty, especially as I wait impatiently for further testing, there is a comfort in the fact that since this was caught so early, meaning that I can learn and adapt strategies to make my future more comfortable, despite what my arthritic joints may want.
Julia Podgorski is a member of the class of 2028 and can be reached at jpodgorski@wesleyan.edu.
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