Emma
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Emma was diagnosed with seropositive rheumatoid arthritis when she was 18 years old. Despite being in pain, Emma has graduated with two university degrees and spent a summer in the USA. She is also very sporty and enjoys street running and spinning classes.
Emma is a full time PhD student in the dermatological sciences. She is white British.
More about me...
Emma is a PhD student in the biomedical sciences. She was diagnosed with seropositive rheumatoid arthritis when she was 18 years old. Emma became ill when she was on holiday shortly after receiving her A-Level results. When she returned to the UK she was hospitalised because she was in so much pain and struggled to care for herself. The doctors did not know if Emma would get better so she cancelled her place at university. Emma became depressed and felt lonely because her friends went to university. She even contemplated suicide when the pain was at its worse. Life started to get easier once the doctors diagnosed Emma and found medications that relieved the pain. She was given steroid infusions and methotrexate. Emma managed to find a part-time job and attended university in the following year. At the time of the interview Emma was taking Enbrel (etanercept) and methotrexate to help manage her arthritis. She has graduated with two university degrees and even spent a summer in the United States of America. She is a fitness enthusiast and enjoys running and spinning classes. Her success with university, travelling and exercise is partly due to the medications, and partly due to her determination to not let the pain and fatigue get in the way of her goals.
Emma knew which medications she wanted to take and which to avoid. She was insistent with her...
Emma knew which medications she wanted to take and which to avoid. She was insistent with her...
Nowadays Emma watches how much she drinks but as a fresher at university she often got very drunk.
Nowadays Emma watches how much she drinks but as a fresher at university she often got very drunk.
I like my gin OK and I'm not, shouldn't be so pleased to like gin. No I don't know, some consultants I've spoken to are very stiff and very much, 'don’t drink, don't do this, don't do that, yeah. If you can try and cut out caffeine,' all this kind of stuff, you know, 'Try and realise everything,' and there's other people who are like, 'Well actually you be sensible and actually if you just stick to government guide lines,' and because I've never been on the maximum amount of methotrexate anyway, I've, you know, I'd have to be drinking an awful lot to cause irrefutable damage. So I try not to drink too much and like to be honest I mean, I say I drink but for me saying I drink, it's a couple of nights in a pub a week where I'll have a couple of pints and then I'll tend to go to the diet coke. OK admittedly, first year I was a Fresher, I got off my face, you know, four times a week you know, but because I was so disinclined to tell people about how much I've had, you know, problems with my arthritis and people just stare at you when you tell them and they look at you blankly like, 'Why would you take these drugs then?' you know, I just kind of got on with it and maybe I, maybe, you know, did sacrifice my health then but my blood; I always went for my regular blood tests, I was very good, you know, try and have a few nights off a week but as I've gotten older and as you become a boring post-graduate student you don't have much time to be drinking anyway so; my liver should have recovered by now. But yes I had to be a fresher, everyone's got to be a fresher, you come to university for a reason, don’t you?
Emma doesn't feel she needs a blue badge because her arthritis affects her elbows more than her...
Emma doesn't feel she needs a blue badge because her arthritis affects her elbows more than her...
And that's the only help I've ever wanted to have because I don't need money for pain, that's how I've always saw it. Like, you know, it hasn't stopped me from getting on with my life and getting a bus or walking to work and maybe I could have let it go that way and taken all the benefits in the world but I'm far too honest for that and you know, and I just think for me it's taken a while to get over it as well. Like I'm not going to go and get a blue badge for my car because oh I've got a little bit of arthritis in two elbows. I mean that's not really affecting my parking now is it? Because I can park far away, I can still walk. The only thing that I have trouble with is I have to ask friends to come and carry my shopping some days or I can't do big shops but I live on my own so it doesn't, you know, you live to your needs. So yeah I'm quite, yeah I never used to be so open about it and I probably, if, given this, you know, three years ago I probably would have just sat here and gone, 'Don't want to answer that, don't want to answer that,' but now it's kind of like, 'Well actually, you know, people might benefit from having kind of an open and honest, you know, it's shit, it hurts, you get on with it and if you don't get on with it, it gets even worse.' So yeah. And I'm two degrees later, about to hopefully finish a third in four years' time. A first and a distinction may I add, big head out. The first in my undergrad and the distinction for my Masters and that takes an awful lot of work.
People who feel scared are reassured by friendly doctors and nurses.
People who feel scared are reassured by friendly doctors and nurses.
Yeah I think it should especially if a patient's young. I don't know about; it would probably feel quite patronising if you're eighteen and you know, things like that but when you're eighteen and you're in a hospital and you're scared because you don't know where, you know, you're going be walking like this, you know, shuffling eighty year old at you know, twenty seven. 'Oh my god,' you know, it's kind of like, 'aaah,' you know. I think you need a level of friendship because otherwise well I would panic and I've; there were moments, lots of moments of panic so I encourage it. I don't like the, you know, I've, there are, there are other nurses that I've had appointments with when said nurse hasn't been around, it's not been as good and I've not felt like I've got anything from it. And I like to go to an appointment and feel, well maybe not some at the moment because my arthritis is on like an even keel and there's not really much to say, but when things were bad it was, I preferred having something to aim for like more, we’ll do more hydrotherapy or we'll do this or maybe have you thought about another joint injection as much as I hate them and they're bloody awful I don't recommend them to anyone but I do recommend them to anyone. Yeah it's always nice to have the kind of friend, a friendly ear to make you, you less scared. Because you know a rheumatology ward is not like going to a children's ward. You know it's maybe, you know, there's rheumatology clinics for people that are under eighteen and you know and they're classed as a child but when you're eighteen the NHS instantly sees you as an adult so you have to go to you know, scary wards you know and I got admitted to hospital last year for a kidney infection and I ended up on you know, a ward full of old people because you know, they don't group eighteen to twenty four year olds together. So yes it's quite, yeah, there's not really that kind middle of the road gap for young people in the NHS so it's nice to have nurses and it helps that this nurse is quite young and she's, she's got teenagers herself and I think she's quite relatable and that you know, she, she'd worry about her kids if they were, you know, going through the same thing and it's nice that she's got a level of understanding.