A very good friend of mine from work has been diagnosed with Ankylosing Spondylitis. He was in for his yearly bone density test (he has Osteopenia, which is similar to Osteoporosis) yesterday when he got the news. He’s been living with a bone disease for ten years now, and just when that one (Osteo) starts to improve (the news on that was good), he finds out that he has this to deal with. I don’t even know how to wrap my mind around this. He is one of the closest friends I have ever had (he affectionately calls me his “other wife” and I call him my “other husband”). He is one of the most caring and loving people I have ever known. I cannot believe that life could be so cruel as to do this to someone who has such a love of life and is so active. He is tired every day. It takes him over an hour to get up out of bed in the morning because of the pain. I have never seen him back off from doing anything physical because of his disability. In fact, most people at work don’t even know how bad his disability affects him, because he doesn’t let it show. The man spent 14 hours one day working on my car so that I could have a/c, and he rarely took a break, even though I know he must have been in pain. See, but if I had just gone to an auto repair place, he would have been insulted, as though I was saying he couldn’t do it. That’s the kind of person he is. And now, the doctor is telling him that, because of the AS, he will someday be not able to do some things. He had printed out some stuff from a website and read it all to me this morning. None of it was good, and none of it sounded very encouraging. And I felt almost selfish crying about it in front of him, because he’s the one going through this, not me. I told him I wished there was something I could do that would take it away from him, or at least make him feel better. He said, “There is. Bring me two twenty year-old women.” So at least he’s trying to keep his sense of humor.
It’s not that I’ve never had someone close to me get sick before. But I have never had a very good friend get this sick. And this disease will be there for the rest of his life. The best case scenario is that his condition will stay the same as it is right now. There is no “better” for him, and I hate that.
Sorry about the long confusing post. In conclusion, life sucks sometimes.