The Stories We Tell Ourselves: Exploring Memories of Arthritis

Bushwalking is something I started doing seriously in my forties, after nearly two decades of living in Sydney. I bought a book of bush, park and city walks, which took me to all corners of my adopted city. I explored all the walks with friends, methodically ticking them off as I went. Soon after, I did my first multi-day walk, the Milford Track in New Zealand.

I have since hiked the Inca Trail in Peru, the Three Capes Track in Tasmania, parts of the Great Ocean Walk in Victoria and the last 120 kilometres of the Camino a Santiago in Spain with various friends. The Inca Trail was by far the most difficult, involving thousands of steep steps climbed over four days, at high altitude.

About 12 months ago, I started feeling a stabbing pain in my knees every time I went up steps. I started avoiding bushwalks. Some days it was difficult to even climb to my apartment, on the second floor in a building without lifts. I started using lifts wherever they were available. Tests revealed that I had the beginnings of osteoarthritis. I was in my mid-fifties and considered myself too young for this to happen.

Pepe’s Wheelchair

What scared me most were the memories I had of my paternal grandfather, Joseph, or as he was affectionately called, Pepe. I saw him in my mind’s eye, having to use a wheelchair because all his articulations were riddled with arthritis. He was in his sixties when he died (I was seven years old then), and towards the end, he was confined to bed because he couldn’t even get around in the wheelchair anymore.

I saw this as my future and was engulfed by fear. I am sure I told my mother about my concerns, because I remember her telling me that my grandfather died half a century ago, and there have been many advances in medicine and technology since. I could have a knee replacement. There were new medications, rehabilitation options, etc.

I started seeing an exercise physiologist. It slowed down the condition’s progress, but the pain was still there, as was the cloud of worry.

Recently, I was chatting with my half-sister, who lives in Bolivia, my country of birth, via WhatsApp. She is much younger than me, born to my father’s second wife. She never met Grandpa Pepe. We were talking about our father, who is now in his eighties, and developing osteoarthritis in his knees. She told me he’s finding it difficult to get around. I was going to say, “At least he’s doing much better than his dad, Grandpa Pepe, who was already in a wheelchair in his fifties,” but I decided to check my facts first.

I texted my mother: “How old was Grandpa Pepe when he had to start using a wheelchair?”

I received a series of texts in reply. Here’s the gist of the story she told me.

The Real Story

Grandpa Pepe, who served in the Bolivian military, retrained as a motor mechanic later in life. He went to Panama to gain his qualifications, where he became ill with rheumatoid arthritis, perhaps due to the tropical weather. This was treated, upon his return, with steroids, which caused many issues, including osteoporosis. One day, he was going down the stairs, stepped too heavily on one leg, and just like that, fractured his femur.

My parents were getting married within days, so he refused to have an emergency operation. Instead, he attended the wedding in a wheelchair. That was the one and only time in his life he was in a wheelchair, and I wasn’t even born then!

He had the operation shortly after the wedding, but he never recovered properly. For the rest of his life, he used crutches. But he never stopped working, driving, travelling, going up and down stairs or doing anything because of his bad leg. With his crutches, he got around everywhere. And no, he was not confined to bed for months before his death because of his rheumatoid arthritis (which is a different type of arthritis from the one I have). It was due to another illness, which took him away within weeks.

I was flabbergasted. What about all the vivid memories I had of him in a wheelchair? Or unable to leave his room for months on end? I looked through old photos and sure enough, there he was, standing tall and proud with the help of his crutches. If there was a photo of the wedding showing him in the wheelchair, I have never seen it.

This was a memory I invented to fuel my fear, a completely irrational one at that, considering I know people who use wheelchairs, and they don’t let that stop them from doing anything either. This false memory had haunted me for months, and due to some communication breakdown, my mother had not clarified this earlier.

A Brighter Future with Arthritis

I am no longer afraid of a future living with arthritis. In fact, the stabbing pain has eased. I have been taking the stairs again instead of using the lifts. I’ve gone back to bushwalking too, though I’m still avoiding paths with steep ascents… for now. Whether it’s the mental shift, or the exercise physiology, or the inspiration I have gained from learning my Grandpa’s story, or a combination of all, something is working. And I will continue to seize life by the horns, like he did.