Living with a Autoimmune disease - V

This is not a scene related post at all, the scene has played a very minor role in our lives since we had our child 19 months ago, not just because we now have a baby but because I have been quite unwell. When our son was six months old I was diagnosed with rhumatoid arthrtis, now a year down the track the disease has progressed quite a bit from where it was a year ago and I'm in a lot of pain most of the time. I am working with specilist to try and find something to help deal with the pain and slow the disease down and if/when that happens we will start getting back into our lifestyle. Oh how I miss being a 24/7 slave, somedays the pain that I am not serving is equal to the pain from the disease that is destroying my body and life. I keep asking if we can find a way back, find a way to work around my illness and at the moment the answer is not yet. I had steroid injections yesterday and if I am lucky enough that they help with the pain then we may be able to get back towards where we want to be.

This disease is scaring me, I was diagnosed about this time last year and in that time it feels like it has been one continious flare. People talk about how they have temporary remissions but to me that just seems like a dream. I don't know if my pain is getting worse or if my ability to cope with it is lowered the more the pain drags on. I'm scared of the future.

I want to have another baby but what if I flare really badly and can barely look after it? My partners just gone back to work after spending 9 months as my fulltime carer and looking after our 19 month old son and we can't afford for him to take that time off again. Long term is fair to my child/ren, is it fair to have any more when this disease is taking from me my ability to do things like running and jumping with them? Is it fair to them when i know i will need to help out with household chores much earlier then i'd like because i struggle to get them done myself? My 19 month old already brings me my cane when ever he sees me standing up without it. It just doesn't seem fair to him but the the flip side of the coin I love him and he is the reason I get out of bed in the morning, he is the reason I take the medication, go to appointments and do everything i can to remain as well as I can. I do everything I can with him, I sit down on the couch hold my arms out open to him and he comes running with a book to sit and cuddle while I read (the same books a hundred times in a row it feels). I sit at the table with him and we colour, draw and do craft, I stand him on a chair in the kitchen and let him help me mix a cake and on a good day when I can move I spend those days playing ball, running after him and doing all the things I can't do most of the time knowing full well that I will hurt from it later.

I want to be healthy, i want to run and play with him, I don't want to be in pain, I don't want to be exhausted and I don't want to be on meds that make me so sick. I don't like staring down the barrel of this future and I just don't want to do this anymore.