My Autoimmune Arthritis Story 

My Autoimmune Arthritis Story 

Autoimmune arthritis was NOT on my radar when I first realized that there was something really wrong in 2008. Even though I’ve suffered from mysterious ailments all my life, I never suspected autoimmune disease.

In 2008, I was experiencing stabbing pain in my calves and legs that was abnormal. I attributed it to working out and wearing heels, but was shocked at the pain and fatigue. It just wouldn’t go away. I knew there was something really wrong with my legs. Just before I got married in December 2008, I flew home to Canada to get ready for my wedding with my family. My best friend was visiting from the UK and she had never seen snow before. We went outside to play in the snow and make snow angels. And as I was chasing after her, I stepped down and it felt like a knife had gone through my foot and all the way up my leg.

It felt similar to the pain I had experienced eight years earlier at age 24 at a track meet. At first I thought I had dislocated something because that is what I did to my left knee back then. (It was my third dislocation, by the way. I’ve dislocated both shoulders and my left knee.)

But it soon became apparent that it was something else. For two weeks, I could barely put any weight on my left leg, and then it mysteriously disappeared just in time for my wedding.

Then one winter day in February 2009

Two months after our wedding in Mexico, my knees swelled up to the size of softballs. I had ‘swollen knees and ‘matchstick’ legs. My legs felt like they were going to snap in half. I couldn’t hold my own body weight. My back felt like a corkscrew and it was on fire.

I was waking up in the morning in tremendous pain. I was always stiff and everything hurt. The pain was non stop and unbearable.

It didn’t matter whether I was sitting, lying down or standing, the pain was intolerable. I cried every night going to bed. Then I’d cry again when I woke up.

It’s 2023 and I’m still crying when I wake up in the morning. The pain is unreal.

Within a week of that incident, my hospital in Taiwan had come back to me with a diagnosis. I had autoimmune arthritis.

It was a nasty disease called Ankylosing Spondylitis.

“Well, thank goodness it’s not Rheumatoid Arthritis!” I thought. I was in denial even though I was in a wheelchair for months in 2009. I spent the rest of that year trying to walk with a cane.

Meds seemed to help, but then in 2011, just as I was boarding a plane to Hong Kong, it came back suddenly. It hit so hard and fast at the airport, we were shocked. I walked into the airport. By the time we got through immigration and were heading to out gate, I couldn’t walk. Airport staff noticed what was going on and they asked me if I needed a wheelchair.

Again, denial. I took the wheelchair and they took me off the plane in Hong Kong. And that was my first experience with flight assistance. I had no idea then that I’d need it every time I flew after that. My arthritis is severe and complex. It strikes fast and it strikes hard. And since that fateful day in 2009, it has never let up. Every day has been a battle.

Rather than let illness take me down, I decided to use my voice to raise awareness. That’s what you see on MySeveralWorlds.com and with the various arthritis organizations that I work with.

I’ve fought every single day of my life since then. And I will never stop fighting! If my story reaches one person, then all of this work has done what it is supposed to do. We never walk alone!