Catherine
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Catherine has extended oligoarticular juvenile idiopathic arthritis. She has had it for about twenty years and experiences pain in many joints. Even though the pain has got worse as she has got older, she still praises her health care team and considers herself 'lucky'.
Catherine is a health care assistant and honorary assistant psychologist. She lives with her partner. She is white British.
More about me...
Catherine’s arthritis has affected different parts of her body at different times.
Catherine’s arthritis has affected different parts of her body at different times.
Catherine had some of the tissue in her knees removed (synovectomy). When she has a flare up the...
Catherine had some of the tissue in her knees removed (synovectomy). When she has a flare up the...
Catherine thought the adult rheumatology team would be impersonal but this wasn’t the case. The...
Catherine thought the adult rheumatology team would be impersonal but this wasn’t the case. The...
Catherine sometimes panics about the future. She wonders if she will need a walking stick or a...
Catherine sometimes panics about the future. She wonders if she will need a walking stick or a...
I’d say there definitely is yeah because especially as you get older you start to think more like ooh, like I always think what am I going to be like in another, if I’m like this now what am I going to be like in another twenty years. Am I going to be like round on a walking stick or needing a hip replacement or something so there’s always like panics about the future I think and when I was younger I never really, I never worried about the future at all and I think there was always the option as well that I’d grow out of like, grow out of arthritis which obviously didn’t happen. So I think yeah there’s a definitely, there’s the stress as well of thinking, “Oh god if this is going to get any worse, am I going to have to take time off work,” and “What’s going to happen like say when I’m older?” and things so, there’s always those worries.