PsA is a Never-Ending Adventure

I’ve never once felt sorry for my best friend who has psoriatic arthritis. Mostly because she’d never speak to me again if I gave her one word or pitiful glance.

We’ve been best friends for more than 20 years and have shed tears together over broken hearts, lost loved ones, world tragedies, and Love Actually, but we have never cried about her disease. In fact, we rarely even discuss it.

PsA is simply part of our lives

It’s not that either of us are in denial. In fact, she is a beloved ambassador for raising awareness, sharing her story, and helping others living with it. We just choose to treat it as simply part of life because that’s what it is for her and consequently me by proxy. There are days when it’s a royal pain and inconvenience and there are times when it is savage beast preventing her from being able to do the simplest things. Regardless, it is a part of everything she does, and yet I would never say it controls her or consumes her. Quite the opposite.

When I say we are inseparable it is an understatement. We aren’t your average girlfriends grabbing the occasional brunch on the weekend. We are each other’s first text of the day, we workout together 4-7 days a week, and can usually be found concocting and scheming some new fundraiser or adventure together. You’d think with all this time together, we’d be sick of each other - we aren’t and that as her ‘bestie’, I’d be able to anticipate and predict what she needs when she needs it - I can’t.

Supporting someone with PsA

Being a support to someone affected by PsA doesn’t come with a manual. It’s as unpredictable as the weather. I have seen her under the most severe stress without a single flare, and I have seen her during times that appear to be status quo in extreme pain and covered in psoriasis. I can’t anticipate what will cause a problem, what side effect may appear from medication, or how it will impact those crazy adventures I mentioned. What I’ve found helps her most from me though, is to go with the flow and adjust our sails. There are days when a leisurely walk isn’t possible for her, yet two hours pounding a 150 lb heavy kickboxing bag is just what the doctor ordered. So, on those days, that’s what we do. There are times when we are on a girls’ trip in Manhattan but severe pain means we are in our beds in the hotel at 8:30pm instead of sipping cocktails at the Gansevoort. Some may say, “what a waste in the city that never sleeps.” We say, “what better girl time than to curl up with a great movie eating room service, no matter what the zip code!”

Maybe part of why we aren’t sick of each other is because this crazy disease keeps us on our toes. We have to stay creative to find things to do that make sense when it flares. If it wasn’t a part of her life, would we just be the boring girls heading to the bar every weekend? Who wants to be that? I’d rather have our mixed up crazy adventures any day. Of course, I’d give my right arm to anyone who can find a cure, but sometimes the biggest pains in life can awaken a creative and free spirit we never knew we had.