After living with rheumatoid arthritis for twenty one years, on episode 17 of the Arthritis Life Podcast Krista shares how she went from rock bottom and hopeless to full of hope. She also shares her experiences dancing on TikTok, connecting to the wider chronic illness community and being public about her diagnosis for the first time.
In January 2000, Krista was diagnosed with Rheumatoid Arthritis; a debilitating autoimmune disease affecting her joints, tissues, skin and organs. Having experienced chronic pain, disability, stress, depression, isolation and hopelessness for years, she relates deeply to the fear and impact to all facets of life when health is deteriorated.
In 2015, Irksta began addressing root cause drivers of her inflammation and disease, which not only dramatically improved her quality of life, but led her to become a speaker and certified coach. Today, Krista is on a reMISSION to inspire and empower others to improve their own health and quality of life.
Cheryl Crow is an occupational therapist who has lived with rheumatoid arthritis for seventeen years. Her life passion is helping others with rheumatoid arthritis figure out how to live a full life despite arthritis, by developing tools to navigate physical, emotional and social challenges. She formed the educational company Arthritis Life in 2019 after seeing a huge need for more engaging, accessible, and (dare I say) FUN patient education and self-management resources.
- Links to things discussed in the podcast episode PLUS:
- Krista’s Instagram: @kickra18
- Tiktok: @kickra18
- Website: alivetoliving.com
- Cheryl’s Facebook group: Arthritis Life Podcast, Practical Tips & Positive, Realistic Support
- Cheryl’s Free Handout: Cheryl’s Master Checklist for Managing RA
- This episode is brought to you by the Rheumatoid Arthritis Roadmap, an online education and support program Cheryl created to guide people with RA step by step through how to confidently manage their social, emotional and physical life with rheumatoid arthritis.
Episode Breakdown:
- 01:00 – Krista’s introduction and diagnosis story at age 29
- 05:15 – Krista’s initial fears about what life with RA would be like
- 7:00 – How Krista’s diagnosis affected her relationship with her fiance, wedding planning, family planning and all aspects of life
- 9:20 – Living in “fear, shame, anger and doom” for the first fifteen years of her journey, without revealing her diagnosis at work or publicly
- 10:52 – Isolating herself from fear of being perceived as weak
- 13:45 – Krista’s experience on prednisone, feeling “not broken”
- 14:50 – Pregnancy challenges due to RA flare
- 17:19 – Krista’s wedding – home made Keds
- 19:14 – Krista hits “rock bottom” after 15 years and leaves her 20 year corporate career and decides not to apply for disability.
- 21:05 – Krista encounters Teri Wahl’s diet and lifestyle journey with MS and the “Wahl’s Protocol”
- 22:10 – Krista learns about “root cause medicine,” finds hope and goes back to school to become a “holistic nutritionist.”
- 26:25 – Krista learns to pay attention to her inflammation triggers (stress, foods, fragrances, sleep)
- 29:33 – Krist and Cheryl reflect on the importance of hope and mindset
- 31:23 – The importance of avoiding the “positive thinking” trap and how it’s good to validate your feelings.
- 32:35 – Learning to mentally reframe what was actually happening in her life and address perceptions to stop her stress response.
- 35:20 – How Cheryl & Krista both learned to curb the urge to be people-pleasers.
- 36:00 – Krista and Cheryl discuss learning to set boundaries, say no & protect energy.
- 40:27– Krista joins TikTok in June 2020, makes “I can’t shuffle but I can Shakira” viral video showing belly dance style moves
- 44:02 – Krista is surprised by the positive responses to her dance videos
- 47:50 – Inspiring people to move however you can, “love yourself moving”
- 51:20 – Krista starts showing some of her physical limitations in her videos, and realizes that she doesn’t have to hide her RA anymore.
- 56:00 – Krista reflects on going from very private to public about her diagnosis
- 58:20 – How Krista responds to unsolicited advice from people who don’t have a chronic illness
- 1:00:10 – Krista’s words of wisdom for newly diagnosed patients.
- 1:03:07 – Krista’s final thoughts: being 50 and being in the best place she’s been in 21 years, learning how to live in the moment even if it’s uncomfortable.
Medical disclaimer: All content found on the Arthritis Life public channels was created for generalized informational purposes only. The content is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment.
Full Transcript:
[00:00:00] Cheryl:
[Introductory note]
Hi, my name is Cheryl Crow, and I am passionate about helping people navigate real life with arthritis. I’ve lived with rheumatoid arthritis for 17 years, and I’m also a mom, teacher, and occupational therapist. I’m so excited to share my tricks for managing the ups and downs of life with arthritis. Everything from kitchen life hacks to how to respond when people say, “You don’t look sick.” Stress, work, sex, anxiety, fatigue, pregnancy, and parenting with chronic illness. No topic will be off limits here. I’ll also talk to other patients and share their stories and advice. Think of this as your chance to sit down and chat with a friend who’s been there. Ready to figure out how to manage your arthritis life? Let’s get started.
Today, we have Krista Rowan. I can’t wait for you guys all to meet her. So, Krista, can you first just tell us a little bit of your origin story, where you’re from, and then when you got diagnosed?
[00:01:00] Krista:
Oh, my goodness. Okay. So, I am in Canada, just outside of Toronto. And I was diagnosed 21 years ago with rheumatoid arthritis. There’s a long story how that happened and also a very short story how that happened. But I am married. I have a son who I didn’t think I was going to have. So, he’s a miracle onto its own. And I am in a very different place now than I was and I didn’t expect to be here.
[00:01:38] Cheryl:
What — yeah. Can you tell us a little bit about your diagnosis journey or what I sometimes call it saga? Yeah, and your treatment journey as well. Did you respond well to the treatments or —?
[00:01:54] Krista:
Well, it’s interesting because leading up to my diagnosis wasn’t a saga at all. I know that a lot of people feel a lot of pains and they’re not believed, and they’re feeling invisible, and they’re feeling like they have this projection of laziness and incapability. And I didn’t have any of that. So, mine was actually very rapid and unexpected and but it turned immediately. So, I was 29. I was very athletic. And I actually dismissed pain, fatigue, stiffness, and all of that because I was working out too hard. I didn’t even consider it would be arthritis. I know that there is a difference with rheumatoid arthritis being autoimmune driven and degenerative arthritis, but arthritis in general wasn’t even a thought being 29.
I was climbing the ladder of the status quo with all of those success achievements. So, I was newly engaged. We had just bought our first house and I was waiting to start a new job in January of 2000. And I went to bed one night thinking everything’s fine. Just no second thought about what my future would look like. It was planned. Like, most people have it planned, right? They see those steps. You get married, you buy a house, you have kids, you work a job. All of those status quo kinds of things, right? And I went to, bed and woke up the next morning in a complete head to a head to toe flare.
I couldn’t even get into my shoes. I wore flip flops in the snow to the doctor in January thinking that I was having an allergic reaction because it was that extreme. My entire body was full and I couldn’t even get dressed. I couldn’t do up buttons; I couldn’t do anything. So, it was like, what is going on? It was like full on body flare. And thankfully, my doctor recognized it that, no, this is an allergic reaction. This is something a little more serious. And got me into what was then an emergency rheumatologist appointment, which was two weeks. So, a long time ago, rheumatologist appointments would be 9 to 12 months out. Thankfully, there’s a lot more people going into rheumatology and it’s kind of sad at the same time because there’s such a need for it now. Like, autoimmunity has skyrocketed, but that’s a whole other issue we can talk about.
So, I went in and he thought maybe it was lupus. I was like, what the heck is lupus? I don’t know what that is. And when the rheumatologist saw me, she said, “No, you have rheumatoid arthritis.” I had no idea what that is. Again, I heard the word arthritis and it was insane. The problem that I had with being newly diagnosed and not knowing anybody like me, or not having any information available other than what was on the Internet, I had two modes of thinking. I had my rheumatologist telling me that if I couldn’t get the inflammation managed, I would likely be in a wheelchair within five years. And then, I had the Internet that showed only disfigurement, disability, and full-on disabled. So, that was my perception of what my life was gonna be. It was fear. So, from that moment of diagnosis, that fear kicked in. I can’t even tell you to the levels. It was 24/7.
[00:05:44] Cheryl:
It’s just amazing the variability because I remember in 2003 is when I got diagnosed, but just those three years made a difference I think, because then my doctors were like a bit optimistic. ‘Cause they’re like, “Well, if you can get on some of these biologics, then you might be able to avoid the progressive joint deformity and disability that used to be the complete expectation with RA.” But you’re so right about how if you’re not given a lot of information, even people today in 2020 tell me, even with all the more information that’s out there, they’ll still say, “Oh, my gosh, I’m so scared. I looked online and I saw all these terrible stories.” It can be a really a scary thing. And you were engaged at the time, it sounds like.
[00:06:30] Krista:
I was, so you can imagine planning your wedding in sickness and health. And I didn’t even know to the extent of what that was really going to mean because you can’t even comprehend what autoimmunity looks like, right? And the other thing from a med therapy perspective is, well, do you wanna have kids? And it was like, you mean I have to think about this now? That’s a thing too? ‘Cause that determined the medications that they could give me.
So, it’s like, how do we keep you managed enough without going hard hitting that produce a whole other level of side effects or whatever, and compromise my ability to have kids? So, we had to make even decisions around that. It was a lot.
[00:07:19] Cheryl:
A lot, really fast. Yeah.
[00:07:21] Krista:
Check this out. The house that we bought was three stories.
[00:07:27] Cheryl:
Oh, no.
[00:07:27] Krista:
So, it was like, oh, my gosh, what’s happening? It really is — one of my social media friends said getting diagnosed with RA was like a bomb getting dropped in my life. It just, it explodes and it just affects everything. It’s not just, oh, my hand hurts and my feet hurt. It’s like you mentioned, it’s all your expectations for the future, for your family planning, your job. What was your fiance’s response or was it hard for you guys to get on the same page? This wasn’t in the script, so you don’t have to mention.
[00:08:05] Krista:
Oh, no. No, it’s fine. No, I don’t think — no, it wasn’t, and I think almost because he didn’t know either, right? Neither of us had experience about what to expect. So, because there wasn’t any, there wasn’t any point of reference to say this is what it was gonna look like. It was like, oh, come on. And it was so unbelievable. I have to say it was unbelievable. Especially coming from the degree of athleticism.
[00:08:32] Cheryl:
Yes, I know what you’re talking about.
[00:08:34] Krista:
The degree of athleticism that I was so active we couldn’t even comprehend that I would deteriorate to that degree.
[00:08:44] Cheryl:
It sounds really similar to, another woman I interviewed, Randy, she had the same experience and myself too. Being a high school and then college athlete, it was like — but at least I had like about a year period where my body deteriorated slowly. So, it made sense. At that time I was like, I already feel really weak compared to a year ago. But yeah, to go from that feeling of, no, I feel great, and then go to bed one night and the next morning wake up with all your joints swollen and on fire, that’s just really traumatic.
[00:09:17] Krista:
So, for 15 years of my journey, I lived in complete fear, in anger, in shame, in doom. And not knowing what was gonna happen day to day. ‘Cause we know that RA is very unpredictable. So, that affected not just my mental health, but my emotional health. Feeling like a burden, feeling like I’ll be found out. So, where we have a lot of vulnerability and information and we can kind of see people who have different autoimmune conditions and struggles, that wasn’t part of my world. And I worked in corporate. Thankfully, I had a remote component to my job, but if I were to reveal that I was exhausted, I couldn’t do something, how was that going to reflect on my ability to actually be productive? So, I was terrified to let anybody know that I was struggling.
[00:10:21] Cheryl:
Wow.
[00:10:22] Krista:
So, nobody knew for 15 years. Of course, my close family knew. And maybe the odd manager that I could trust that I knew wouldn’t perceive my abilities as being incapable. But even socially, I isolated myself further because I was afraid to go to an event and shake hands because just me wincing or not being able to have a firm handshake in a professional environment would to me show that I was weak. That anticipation of a 32nd greeting kept me home. It was like it wasn’t worth to go to the bathroom and be dropped and try to recover from a handshake just because I was trying to appear strong.
[00:11:16] Cheryl:
Wow. So, you had this kind of happy face you had to put on for work or try to almost like passing, passing as able-bodied, which is most people’s assumption of a 30-year-old, 31, 32, is that if they don’t see any obvious disability, they assume, people assume you’re fully able-bodied. Were both your fatigue and pain really bad for those 15 years, or was one worse than the other? Or were they like Whack-A-Mole, which is how mine are, like, one at a time, come up and down?
[00:11:49] Krista:
It depended on what therapy I was on at the time. So, when the therapy — so, eventually I did go into biologics. I’ve been through five, only one worked until it failed, and then four subsequent ones failed. But I did get a little bit relief with that first one. And I was able to function normally again. I felt like okay, I can be productive. I don’t have to hide so much, I don’t have to put so much energy into faking how much energy I have. And I went up and down because when the, meds weren’t working, I would crash. But isn’t it amazing that as strenuous and as crippling as chronic illness can be how much we still try to show and say that we’re okay when we’re not.
[00:12:52] Cheryl:
Yeah.
[00:12:53] Krista:
And it just totally puts you further into not feeling good at all. So, I had to almost maneuver my days around appearing okay when I wasn’t, I went through several bouts of disability where I’d have to use vacation days. Everything was hiding. So, and when the medications weren’t working as they could, then I would bridge with steroids hoping that they would kick in again. Could I have probably been a little more disabled by appearance wise? Probably. But I was bridging because my inflammation was progressing so rapidly that I had to use steroids just to keep it under control. And in a way, you know, that feeling of ability, you don’t wanna let go of it. I don’t know if you’ve ever been on steroids and it gives you that immediate relief.
[00:13:54] Cheryl:
Oh yeah. Uh-huh.
[00:13:55] Krista:
It’s like crack, right? It’s like, no, don’t take it away!
[00:14:00] Cheryl:
Yeah. I was like, the first time I took prednisone, I was like, I’m gonna reorganize the whole kitchen. I’m taking everything outta the pantries, and I’m gonna put all back in, and then I’m making my life to-do list.
[00:14:12] Krista:
What’s awesome in hindsight is that kind of gave me a peek into that I wasn’t broken. It’s like, wait a minute, if I can actually function on this med, maybe I’m not so broken after all. Maybe just some things aren’t functioning, you know what I mean? It was interesting.
[00:14:35] Cheryl:
Yeah. And where did your pregnancy fit into all of this? Does your pregnancy — because my pregnancy, I was one of those lucky 60% of people who goes into remission during pregnancy. Was yours that lucky or no?
[00:14:46] Krista:
No.
[00:14:47] Cheryl:
Okay. I’m looking at your face.
[00:14:48] Krista:
No, and I don’t wanna scare people with my pregnancy experience.
[00:14:52] Cheryl:
Everyone’s different. And that’s one refrain I think I say every episode, like, everyone’s different. So, be really careful not to overgeneralize from one person’s experience, but yeah, your experience is your own valid experience.
[00:15:05] Krista:
Oh, totally. Yeah. So, it was pretty early on and not only because I was married when I was 30, so family planning was pretty immediate anyway. But I also had to factor in meds. If my future was disability, then I want to have a child now so that I can maybe go for the harder hitting meds later, right?
[00:15:33] Cheryl:
Yeah.
[00:15:33] Krista:
I did not go into remission. I went off everything two months into my pregnancy and then I was basically bedridden, like, fused in 24/7 pain. It’s one of those things, you know how people always say, “Oh, life is short.” It’s one of those experiences where life was not short. It was breathing through every second and every minute, just waiting for nine months, like it was pretty intense.
[00:16:05] Cheryl:
I’m so sorry.
[00:16:06] Krista:
And I didn’t go into remission. If anything, my chemistry had changed as well while I was pregnant. So, then what worked for me pre-pregnancy didn’t work for me after pregnancy.
[00:16:16] Cheryl:
Just for the, people listening, the research just in the last five years that’s come out, there’s finally been a lot of research into the medications for rheumatoid arthritis and pregnancy. And a lot of them are actually a lot safer than people feared. It’s just that there wasn’t the research before. So, yeah, people made the best decisions based on the avail available data. But so, when your son came, then were you at least a little bit relieved that he was here finally? Or was it still such a blur?
[00:16:45] Krista:
Oh, my gosh. Completely. Well, I actually had to go on prednisone the last month, just so I was able to have him. Oh, yeah. It was great. I don’t regret it for a second, obviously. But it was just all of these momentous occasions, whether it’s getting married and then buying a house and then having a child. Like, all of those things that just seem normal and accessible were completely different.
[00:17:15] Cheryl:
Yeah. What about your wedding? I remember I had four different pairs of shoes for my wedding. Like, one for the pictures and then one for the ceremony, and then one just for comfort, ’cause I wanted to be able to, ’cause I can’t really wear heels for any long period of time ’cause the balls in my feet hurt. What were some of the ways that your RA affected your wedding?
[00:17:36] Krista:
Well, the night before I went to Walmart and bought Keds and lace and string pearls and a whole bunch of decorations. And I made my shoes the night before with a glue gun. [Laughs]
[00:17:54] Cheryl:
Oh, you are the second person to decorate their own wedding attire due to arthritis. My other friend, Sarah, the first episode of the podcast, she decorated her hand splint with like glitter and things because she was like, I’m not wearing an ugly splint on my wedding day. Like, there has to be something better. So, I love that you made your own beautiful lacey Keds. That’s awesome.
[00:18:19] Krista:
And it literally was just to walk down the proverbial aisle and then they came off. Like, I didn’t even care.
[00:18:28] Cheryl:
Yeah. Yeah.
[Intermission begins]
Hi everyone. I’m interrupting really quickly to remind you that this podcast is brought to you by The Rheumatoid Arthritis Roadmap. It’s a comprehensive online education and support program that I created from scratch to help people learn how to live a full life despite rheumatoid arthritis. In the course, you get to learn how to manage everything from physical symptoms like pain and fatigue, to social and emotional aspects of living with rheumatoid arthritis. I even cover the logistics of things like how to track symptoms and how to advocate for yourself in medical appointments. To learn more, go to myarthritislife.net.
[Intermission ends]
You know, things were really, really rough for those first 15 years
[00:19:10] Krista:
They were. And then, what happened is I hit rock bottom. I couldn’t put up the facade anymore. I couldn’t exert the energy I didn’t have anymore. And I started to slur my words on conference calls. I started to drop things. I became extreme in my fatigue and just in breaking down from just trying to be, quote, ‘normal’ for so long. And I ended up leaving a 20-year corporate career with absolutely zero vision of what my future was gonna look like. So, what I did know is that I didn’t want to line up the disability line. And it’s not because I felt shame about that at all. I was on disability when I had my son. But in that experience, I was called weekly by the insurance company making sure I was still disabled. And I had to go through an entire form proving to them that I was disabled.
And I was like, oh man, do I wanna keep proving that I’m disabled every week when I’m trying to get better, right? It’s like, why do I wanna keep talking about how disabled I am? I wanna talk about how not disabled I wanna be? So, I went to sleep, which sounds crazy, but the exhaustion was unbelievable. And I came across — actually, it’s funny. So, here’s the power of social media. I came across a Facebook post. It was a link to Terry Wahls. Have you heard of her?
[00:21:02] Cheryl:
Is that the Wahls Protocol?
[00:21:04] Krista:
Yes.
[00:21:04] Cheryl:
I’ve heard of it. Yeah.
[00:21:06] Krista:
Okay. So, Terry Wahls is a MD who has MS, and she reversed herself out of a tilt recline wheelchair by using diet and lifestyle. And I was like, how is that possible? I’ve asked about this and I’ve always been dismissed, “No, none of that works. It’s all kind of hokey.” And I was like. How did she do that? And she’s a medical doctor. So, it didn’t make sense to me. Anyway, I looked her up and she was having a conference in Iowa talking about her journey, and I handed the book to my husband and I said, read this. I’m going to Iowa. And he’s like, what? And he was like, so he read it and he was like, okay, go.
And so, literally I went to Iowa. So, I left work in June and I went to Iowa in August. And it was the first time I had ever come across the concept of root cause medicine. And it was like, what? And it wasn’t dismissing any of the Western therapies or the good intentions that that had. It was just a different way of looking at things. So, instead of constantly using ways to stop the inflammation, why don’t you look at what’s starting the inflammation? And that whole shift in thinking changed everything.
[00:22:35] Cheryl:
That’s amazing. That happened so close to when you quit your job.
[00:22:39] Krista:
Oh. And it wasn’t like I was looking to quit my job and start something new. I literally couldn’t get up.
[00:22:47] Cheryl:
Yes. Did someone help you adopt the Wahls protocol or did you follow the book, or how did that work?
[00:22:55] Krista:
I followed the book in principle. So, I didn’t follow it to the letter. And that was more intuitive because some of the things didn’t work for me. And everybody’s different, right? Everybody’s capability’s different. So, I really do look at things as guidelines than the rule, and I decided that I was gonna go back to school. So, at 45 I went back to school and to be a holistic nutritionist, which is really functional medicine in nature, in that it looks at mind, body, and spirit, and how all of those things are integrated and work together. So, initially it was how was I going to heal myself and how can I further my knowledge and figure out what these options are now that I had so many options that were presented. It was like, I can do this, and I can do this, I can do this. I can’t even tell you, Cheryl, how empowering that was.
[00:23:51] Cheryl:
Yeah, to go from 15 years of just being super strong and pushing yourself to the limit of what you could at the time, but still having to battle so much physically each day just to function on the most basic level. So, then suddenly you had energy, it sounds like, you had more energy.
[00:24:07] Krista:
Well, you know what I did have? I didn’t have renewed energy at the beginning, but what I had was renewed hope. And it’s one of the things now that I’m such a huge advocate for is understanding possibilities exist. And even though they look different for everybody in how you achieve them, there are so many options and tools and ways that we can have control in such an uncontrollable way that it shifted everything. And I started to gain momentum in figuring out the different combinations on how those options would work for me.
[00:24:48] Cheryl:
That’s incredible. And so, did you do your training online or was that a place that you had to go to?
[00:24:53] Krista:
No, I went to actual physical school.
[00:24:56] Cheryl:
Yeah. What’s that like? I forget what physical places are like.
[00:24:58] Krista:
I had a whole new appreciation for school and I have to tell you, I backed off my teenager.
[00:25:04] Cheryl:
Oh, that’s hilarious.
[00:25:06] Krista:
It was like, okay. I remember now.
[00:25:08] Cheryl:
Yeah. It takes a lot of energy and, well, and I think —
[00:25:11] Krista:
So much energy.
[00:25:13] Cheryl:
And even just learning about your disease itself to begin with. I often say that when you get diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis, it’s like a new job. Like, you need to learn a lot about how your body works, what the disease means, what are all the different ways to manage it; you know, diet, lifestyle, exercise, pain management, basic pain management techniques like hot and cold, and so many different things that you need to learn.
And I think what boggles my mind is that patients are just diagnosed and then sent away, “Okay, come back in three months for another 20-minute appointment.” And you’re like, where’s the system? Like, where’s the system to support and educate people? And that’s been one of my motivations in creating like little educational videos and courses to help patients just ’cause we need more than what’s currently available. But that’s my story. Back to you. So, can you talk a little bit more of the specifics, like of what worked for you in terms of the nutrition interventions and the mindset piece as well?
[00:26:22] Krista:
Yeah. So, one of the things that I’m huge on, which it’s interesting how you bring it back, how we bring things back to basics and how we’ve gotten so far away of just away from how to just take care of ourselves, right. And paying attention, I would say, is absolutely number one. So, I was reacting to different foods and I didn’t even recognize that I was reacting to them. It was just the way it was, right? I knew that stress was probably one of my number one triggers, but I just attributed to everybody has stress and it’s my fault and I’ve got to, I have to manage it or not manage it. So, all of these concepts started to bubble up that I became aware of that I had control over. I didn’t realize that I was sensitive and, in a sense, allergic and highly reactive to fragrance.
[00:27:23] Cheryl:
Oh, wow.
[00:27:24] Krista:
That was putting me — that was driving up flares. Lack of sleep. I knew that obviously we’re fatigued and you go to sleep and sometimes you don’t have restful sleep, but I have learned how to sleep better. Like, just so many things are integrated and they all affect each other. Stress affects your nutrition; your mindset affects your stress. There’s just so many things that if we become more mindful and aware of what we have control over and then we start to utilize them, it’s amazing the results that we’re we’ll get. And here’s the caveat, some things are immediate. If you don’t eat something you’re reacting to, obviously you’re not gonna react to it right away. And some things take time. And in such an immediate response driven society, sometimes we discount the efficacy of our efforts because they don’t happen fast enough. I didn’t see a lot of my results for two years.
[00:28:34] Cheryl:
Wow.
[00:28:36] Krista:
But there’s no downside, right? There’s no downside to eating better. There’s no downside to managing stress. But we don’t like being uncomfortable, right? And we don’t like doing things that maybe require change.
[00:28:53] Cheryl:
Change is hard.
[00:28:55] Krista:
So hard. So hard. Yeah. And we — and when there’s so much of it, it’s hard to do it all at once. And so, don’t. Don’t do it all at once. I didn’t do it all at once. But when you start to pay attention with things that you react to immediately it becomes a lot easier.
[00:29:12] Cheryl:
Yeah. Oh, it’s so true. And I think, like you mentioned, hope too. It really is a positive cycle, because it’s like if you believe nothing you ever try is gonna work, then it’s more likely than nothing you’re gonna try is going to work. And that hopelessness is a stage a lot of people go through. But I always like to remind myself like, lack of evidence isn’t evidence of a lack, meaning let’s say I try one diet and that doesn’t work. I don’t have, I don’t have evidence that a diet works for my arthritis. And this is actually true, for me. There hasn’t been any one diet that’s totally made all my symptoms go away or whatnot. But it doesn’t, I still have hope that there might be. Yeah. The mindset piece is just, or the attitude and the mentality we bring towards it is so crucial.
And it’s something that I think, again, when people, you mentioned in the very beginning, when people hear the words rheumatoid arthritis, they tend to get hooked onto this idea of arthritis, that means joint pain. But really, it’s like a, yeah, a chronic systemic disease that affects your whole body and that includes your mind. And it’s really — and pain itself is processed in your brain. Yeah. So, pain is like a mental phenomenon as well. Not to say that it’s all in your head, but meaning like your brain is what makes sense of and decides whether pain is a threat or not. So, we can use techniques to help our brains figure out is that chronic pain in my hand, is that really a threat? Is that the same level of threat as like a tiger? Probably not. We need to convince our brains sometimes that some of our symptoms aren’t truly a threat, otherwise they’re gonna kick us into that stress gear, you know.
[00:31:03] Krista:
Oh, yeah. Perception of what’s happening is huge.
[00:31:07] Cheryl:
Yeah. What are some of the tools that you’ve used in your mindset for your approach to just living like the last five years with RA?
[00:31:16] Krista:
I 100% believe mindset is foundational. And it’s not to be confused with positivity, because I think we can get into a positivity trap where we feel, you know, sometimes just things suck. We don’t wanna feel positive about it, right?
[00:31:35] Cheryl:
And that’s okay. Yeah. Yeah. I totally agree.
[00:31:38] Krista:
Yeah. If you’re, sad, if you’re angry, then be sad and angry. Don’t invalidate being sad or angry thinking you have to think positive and nothing’s wrong. I think we fall into that trap. For me, mindset is perception of what is actually happening. We have our, you know, when you go back to the triggers of stress or how we respond to stress. Our body is still physiologically wired for a stress response as if we’re being chased by the saber tooth tiger. I know that analogy has been used a lot, but what happens is our perception of stress, whether it be traffic or an argument or just something that has that acute nature to it, if we perceive that as something that’s really going to harm us, it puts us into a repetitive stress response that we’re not actually gonna die, we’re just seeing it as something stressful and we don’t get out of it. The problem with chronic stress is that we keep perceiving things as harm.
And so, I had to really reframe, which is one of my favorite things to do, is reframe how I was seeing situations in my life, how I was seeing people in my life, how I was relating to people in my life. So, whether it was at work, whether it was socially, whether it was relationships, all of those things, I had to reframe what was actually happening versus maybe past experiences that I was reliving and attributing to those experiences. There’s this whole psychological component to stress and mindset, and that was huge for me. Huge. It’s something I manage every day. You could literally put an IV of stress into my arm and I will flare to like the highest level, so I recognize that. That was huge.
[00:33:57] Cheryl:
I’ve seen a lot of patients get frustrated when doctors or health professionals or just anyone brings up to them that stress can play a role in inflammation. And I think it’s because some people were told, “Oh, you’re just stressed, you’re not really sick,” before. So, they get this idea that, oh no, it can’t be stress ’cause I, this is what happened to me. I was like, no, it’s not stress. Because they said I was stressed that I wasn’t. But I was really sick. So, but now that I’ve gotten a much more nuanced understanding of my disease. I do realize, oh, totally stress can flare my symptoms. And it’s just part of being human. Like you said, your brain is wired for to protect you, and it’s constantly scanning for threats and it doesn’t know the difference between a real threat to your survival and just a mental one. So, learning, like you said, how to reframe.
I’ve learned some of those techniques from Cognitive Behavioral Therapy or also Acceptance and Commitment Therapy. They call it diffusion, which means like detach. It’s another way saying detaching from your thoughts, which I love. So, you are like, just acknowledge that they’re like a story, like, oh, that’s that story I tell sometimes about how I’m always late, or that’s the story I tell about how, oh, I’m too loud or I’m too much, or I’m over the top. I need to be quieter. Something like that. Which is ironic now ’cause I definitely lived a little bit of my life trying to please everyone, trying to, okay, someone says you’re too loud. Okay, I’m gonna be a little quieter. Yeah. Someone says, you’re too quiet. Oh, I’m gonna be loud. And then, finally you’re like, I don’t care what you think, I’m gonna do what I want. And now I’m like, you think I’m talk too much. I’m gonna have a talk show. I’m gonna have a podcast having to do it.
[00:35:36] Krista:
Yeah. People pleasing and accommodating is huge in the chronic illness community, right?
[00:35:40] Cheryl:
So huge. It so much too. It’s too much. Too much of a good impulse sometimes to subvert your own desires and not advocate for yourself, it’s not good for you.
[00:35:53] Krista:
Yeah. So, the stress component, just that whole mindfulness has really — and mindset — has made a massive difference. Also setting boundaries. I have learned to set boundaries. So, when we’re talking about people pleasing and accommodating, we have the whole spoony definition, but energy stores. I’ve started attaching degrees of energy that are required for tasks and I look at them and say, okay, this is how much energy I can give to A, this is how much energy I can give to B. And once that has reached its threshold, I set that boundary. I can’t say ‘Yes’ to anything else. I can’t go out, I need to go to bed at a certain time. No, I can’t do that for you. And be okay with that, right? I find that in effort to not offend other people, we end up offending ourselves.
[00:36:53] Cheryl:
That is so true. And it’s — here’s a question people ask me. ‘Cause Charlie’s still relatively young, he’s six years old. And people will say, “Well, do you feel guilty if you have to prioritize your own self?” I don’t prioritize my own self-care like frivolously over his basic needs and his safety. Yeah, but over — because if he wants to play with me for five hours and I need to like rest for one of those hours, I don’t feel guilty about that. I don’t think that’s — we too often guilt ourselves about doing the basic self-care tasks to take care of ourselves and like you said, you have to say ‘No’ sometimes. And if you say ‘No’ because you know that you need to have sleep that night for example, but then you spend that whole night feeling guilty or stressed ’cause you’re missing out, then you’re not actually really taking care of yourself either. So, yeah. How did you learn how to set boundaries?
[00:37:48] Krista:
It’s kind of funny. It almost came from obviously a necessity, but I started to recognize that all of my enabling and accommodation and overextending in making sure everybody else was happy left me in bed while they were out doing their things they wanted to do because I was exhausted. So, it’s like, well, wait a minute. They’re capable. And why am I trying to make myself happy through making them happy? They can make themselves happy. And it was this pivotal moment of I just can’t. I just, I can’t keep up. And so, I started to say ‘No’, because I couldn’t. And then, I thought, well, wait a minute. They’re okay. Why am I, why are we trying to help so much?
[00:38:40] Cheryl:
Yeah, no, I’ve so had that. I’m like, the world is not gonna end if I am not like this party planning central.
[00:38:50] Krista:
So, it was really just starting with saying ‘No’ the first time. It was like, oh, my gosh, and nothing happened. I can say ‘No’ again. And I can put me first here. And I joke about being responsible as being me responsible. And it really is that including yourself in the equation. I think sometimes we think we’re seen as selfish or not a kind person if we’re not always giving, giving, giving. But we have to include ourselves in the equation.
[00:39:21] Cheryl:
I’ve really had to learn, that’s a lesson I’ve had to learn over and over. I had this feedback, every single class I would get the feedback in elementary and middle school and high school, “Pleasure to have in class, pleasure to have in class.” That was my goal, pleasure to have in class. Don’t offend anyone, don’t make anyone unhappy. Just be a pleasure. And honestly, for me it was my healthcare experiences with doctors that didn’t really treat me the way I deserved that finally broke that habit of mine, of being the pleasure. I wanted to be the nice patient, the good patient, the one that didn’t ruffle any feathers and didn’t ask for anything and just made everyone else’s life easier, and not my own. And it’s it’s taken me well into my thirties to be able to finally really come into that. So, it’s an evolution for many of us.
[00:40:14] Krista:
It took me into my forties to learn that. But that’s okay. You know what? The point is I learned it.
[00:40:21] Cheryl:
Yeah, no, and yeah, I would say it’s still a work in progress. Okay. I have to talk about TikTok. I have to because that’s how I got to meet you. So, what inspired you to join TikTok?
[00:40:36] Krista:
So, I would, the short answer would be to mortify my son, but that’s not really why.
[00:40:42] Cheryl:
I’ve seen a lot of parents on TikTok saying that. Yeah.
[00:40:45] Krista:
No, that wasn’t actually the reason. So, he did show me a video that was really funny and I had no idea what it was, and I thought, you know, maybe there’s more. So, in June, I created a TikTok account and just started watching videos in place of the news. And I found that my mood shifted dramatically. Just the creativity and the realness and the dancing, which I was so drawn to. And just the music. I think musically. So, I felt very aligned with it. It was nothing, it was like no other social media platform where I felt this heaviness. And I don’t know, it was, it just felt real and it was fun. And I thought, you know what? I need to post. I need to post and just be part of this. I have no idea what I’m gonna do, but I’ll just do this simple little dance. It was literally a silly, touch your shoulders and put your arm up and that sort of thing. It was really nothing. So, that was why I joined TikTok. What it evolved to astounded me.
So, in the — when I joined, I don’t know if you know the shuffle dances, there was a lot of jumping and a lot of fast movements. So, I’m like, I can’t do that. Like, I can’t jump, I can’t move as quickly, I’m more stiff in the morning. How am I gonna work up to that? So, not understanding TikTok that you can do your own thing. I thought it was all about doing the trends. So, I thought, well, I’m 50, I don’t need to do trends, I’m thinking for myself. And as a joke/not joke, I thought, well, I’ll do a post called ‘I can’t Shuffle, but I can Shakira’. And it was insane the response that got. I was like, what is going on right now? So, I would show my son, “So, is 13,000 views good? So, is 30,000 views good?” And it was going crazy. I think it was like over 800,000 views at one point. Anyway, so that aside, it just lends to the popularity of I just went on to do some silly things not to be noticed.
And from that, people started to ask me questions about doing the move. And I said, well, just bend your knees. And I did a demonstration. If you bend your knees, then you’ll by default move your hip. And it was very belly dancing in nature, which I did 13 years ago after disability only for low impact range of motion type music, music movement. So, it was something that was innate in me. And I just started moving that way. Cheryl, what came from that was astounding. I didn’t expect that by watching me move, it was inspiring people to move that couldn’t move and wouldn’t move. Yeah. And it started this whole new direction of how I saw my presence on TikTok. And it wasn’t even inspiring people as it was they were inspiring me.
[00:44:26] Cheryl:
Right, right. Yeah. So, I’ve noticed a lot of people like to duet your dances, which means that you do a dance and then — and I’ve done this with you too — where then they, you can make a side-by-side video of someone’s existing video. So, is that how you discovered the responses or was it the comments as well, people giving these comments?
[00:44:46] Krista:
The duets really took me back. I had no idea what a duet was, and I started getting these video mentions, ‘Someone’s done a duet with you’ and they were women from all over the world, like South Africa and Kenya and the Philippines just standing up beside their bed or just in a room, like just being themselves and dancing with me. And I was like, what is going on? And just watching them move and I was like, oh, my gosh. It’s so beautiful. Yeah. Because I value movement so much and for me to not even realize I was giving off this message to just move however you can.
[00:45:35] Cheryl:
And then, and you did put — had you put on your profile from the very beginning that you have rheumatoid arthritis?
[00:45:43] Krista:
I did.
[00:45:44] Cheryl:
Okay. That’s how I was looking up when I just joined. I looked up anyone that had rheumatoid arthritis. Like, I just follow, follow, follow. ‘Cause I wanted to connect to as many people. I’ve been amazed for myself at the power of just showing up when you have a disease, like showing up and doing whatever makes you feel good whether that’s dancing or puppeteering or some people are really into making pretty calligraphy or something. But if you, yeah, showing up and doing what makes you feel inspired or feel alive is so inspiring to other people,
[00:46:21] Krista:
Well, and here’s what’s crazy is that, they have little bio that you were just talking about. I had no idea was what I was gonna write. Yeah. Am I gonna be a mom? Am I gonna be a coach? Am I gonna be a wife? Am I gonna be a speaker? Like, how do I represent myself? And I was like, you know what? I’m gonna be me. No one even knows I’m on here. So, I’m gonna — and I wanna dance, so I’m gonna say I am a rheumatoid arthritis warrior on a remission, and I’m gonna dance. I’m doing that with movement. And it really resonated with people.
And it surprised me the response that I got because I thought people would be like, “Oh, good for you,” and be negative. But they were like, “Oh, you inspire me and you give me hope and I wanna dance with you.” And I was like, what? It’s actually, yeah, it makes me, it makes me emotional thinking about it because it’s just, it’s really been tremendous. I had a lady who has Ms who hasn’t danced in 10 years, who did a duet with me saying I inspired her to move, and now she does videos letting go of her walker. And it’s just, like, what?
[00:47:41] Cheryl:
I saw someone dueting you who is in bed. Like, that’s where they’re at. They can’t, they couldn’t get outta bed that day and they did a — they moved what they could, moving your wrist, moving — I know, it made me emotional too, thinking about this.
[00:47:55] Krista:
And that is truly what it’s all about. So, I almost have this campaign that I want to keep promoting and just to love yourself moving is the tag, the tagline that I use, that it all counts. Some days I have really good movement days and I do some crazy dances just because I’m challenging myself too. And then, some days it’s a step touch and it’s just whatever I can.
And the whole point is not to dance like me, it’s to dance like you. Or not even dance, just move like you. And enjoy that possibility and that opportunity to just move.
[00:48:38] Cheryl:
And the Arthritis Foundation in the U.S. had a campaign for a while. I’m not sure if the Canadian one did too, called Joints in Motion, saying ‘Motion is Lotion’. Get your, I thought that was a great campaign, getting your joints moving. And I think dance is, for people who are, who feel compelled, like you said, your brain thinks in songs. It’s so funny you that said that. ‘Cause I felt the same way. Like, I have choreographed like elaborate dance routines in my head just consistently since I was like six-years-old and went to gymnastics class and dance class. And my sister and I used to choreograph dances to Tina Turner and Mariah Carey, kinda the late 80s and it’s just incredible TikTok has just allowed this forum for people to not only express themselves, like, through dancing and stuff, but also connecting to others. And there is a really thriving chronic illness spoony community out there.
[00:49:33] Krista:
And even when I’m on my TikTok lives and people ask me questions or some of the messaging that I’ll put on my posts, I always say that dance is really just a no rules collection of movement. That’s all it is.
[00:49:51] Cheryl:
I love that.
[00:49:54] Krista:
Right? So, stop trying to formalize how you dance and make it look so specific. Just move and that’s dancing. Put music on and move and you’re dancing. Even if it’s a wrist, like it doesn’t matter what it is.
[00:50:08] Cheryl:
Could use eyebrows.
[00:50:09] Krista:
Yeah. It’s all right.
[00:50:11] Cheryl:
Yeah. Yeah. It’s, incredible. Yeah. And so, when you’ve done these lives, ’cause that’s how I started chatting with you a little more. What have been some of the things that have surprised you that have come up or things that you want, you’d like to share about?
[00:50:26] Krista:
What’s really caught me off guard is how I resonate with different people. So, people wanna know my dance history. They’ll ask me if I’m a professional dancer. I’m like, no. Some people that’s awesome. Ask me about RA. They’ll ask me about diets. They’ll ask me about different lifestyles. So, it really runs the gamut depending on, how people are relating to me. Because I do different posts. Some of them I do for stress and mindset and kind of holistic types approaches. And then, the other side is just dance. Not necessarily for someone to duet, but I’m challenging myself too. It’s just fun. So, almost by proxy people are gravitating to that.
[00:51:18] Cheryl:
Some people when they saw your videos, didn’t think that you had any sort of activity limitations or restrictions due to your rheumatoid arthritis. And that, so you decided to make some videos to address that. Yeah. What was the response to that?
[00:51:39] Krista:
One of my absolute favorite duets was a lady that danced with me from a wheelchair. And it’s funny when you talk, when I talk about my history and not wanting to be seen and being very vulnerable, it was a big step for me to show that. And it was so incredibly freeing. It was like, I have nothing to lose and nothing to hide anymore. I am so going to be myself now ’cause that’s all I know how to be. And so, I showed a hand movement where I have some finger drop happening. I can’t straighten my elbows, I can only bend my knees so much. There’s things looking at me because I’ve compensated in how I move that I appear normal. But I still have those limitations. But when I called them out, people saw themselves in me and they were like, oh, well okay, I can do that too. So, it was, yeah, it’s been pretty amazing, the response.
[00:52:39] Cheryl:
This is going a little bit more broad, but many of us fall into that little mental trap of like, “Well, everyone has it easier than me.” Or, “Well, she’s lucky ’cause she can dance, but I can’t.” But it’s everyone’s story is always more complicated than we’re assuming. Like, some of the other day it was like, “Oh, how long have you been in remission?” I’m like, well, I’m not currently in remission, but they’re like, “Oh, well, we assumed ’cause we saw you dancing.” Similar, ’cause I had done some dancing on my Instagram and I’m like, well no, I’m dancing despite some joint pain, inflammation. I have it, but you can’t tell from looking at me when I was in remission and I looked pretty similar, but I can certainly tell from the inside what it feels like. And you can see like some different joint deformities in my case, if you know how to look really closely. But yeah, in your case, yeah, you can —
[00:53:25] Krista:
And mine too, right? You can tell if you look really closely, but I think people are more focused on the energy and just people always say they’re very attracted to my energy and it’s like, well, I’m moving. Like, I literally, that energy is not coming with the need to entertain. That need is coming from, oh, my god, I can move. Like, it’s just interesting how it all translates.
[00:53:53] Cheryl:
Did you — so you learned how to belly dance, you said 13 years ago. Was that right?
[00:53:58] Krista:
I took lessons 13 years ago.
[00:54:01] Cheryl:
Have you been dancing since then, like on your own, or was it a hobby that you dropped and then picked back up again recently?
[00:54:10] Krista:
Well, I’ve danced my entire life, but the belly dancing specifically is because when I came off disability in 2007, I needed to, quote, ‘exercise’, right? I needed to rebuild my muscle. I needed to start to create more range of motion. And it needed to be low impact. So, dance was what I knew. And belly dancing specifically was low impact. It wasn’t like hip hop or jazz or something that had very specific jerky wide range of movement. So, it was something that I could make it as low impact or as high impact as I needed. And yeah, the techniques just gave me the range and the ability to move and it’s remained ingrained. So, once you learn those techniques, ’cause it helps with posture and everything else, it just stays with you.
[00:55:14] Cheryl:
You have 400,000 likes on TikTok.
[00:55:18] Krista:
Is that what I’m at?
[00:55:20] Cheryl:
Yeah. 400,000. It’s amazing. Yeah. And again, not — I mean, the numbers are important because it means that those are people you’ve in inspired. And I think what amazes me is that I didn’t know that you only, or you initially got on TikTok and thought you were — it sounds, let not put words in your mouth, but from what you said earlier, that you were a little bit disappointed that you couldn’t hop on some of the big trends, like the shuffling trends and that you decided, okay, well what can I do? I can do the belly dancing.
But now that’s like what you’re known for. Like, you stand out because you’re not doing — you, like, just five, six years ago were feeling like you had to hide this diagnosis and that you were isolated and now you’re just out there in the world doing your, like, doing your dances, sharing that you have rheumatoid arthritis. And how has that felt to be, to go from being so private to being public about your diagnosis?
[00:56:23] Krista:
Well, being public about my diagnosis has been incredibly freeing. I started doing that a couple of years ago and talking about it, and it was weird because it was this double-edged sword of do I come across as I’m complaining, or that I’m trying to validate something that I’m doing versus, yeah, I just have this, and I don’t have to give an explanation, but just be aware, right? I think sometimes we feel like we have to overexplain. And I don’t explain anymore. I don’t, and it’s not because I wanna hide, I just don’t feel I owe people an explanation.
I think sometimes we fall into that trap that we wanna be seen, we wanna be validated, we wanna be cared for, we want all of these things. But it’s incredibly freeing to almost just say it is what it is, and then to go on and do what I do. It’s almost when you’re setting the bar high and setting the bar low, I think because people without chronic illness don’t understand it when you try to explain it, they attach their own perception to it that I don’t even bother. So, I just say what it is and then I don’t, I just move on.
[00:57:50] Cheryl:
Right. That’s such a common challenge of trying to explain it for the first time. Yeah. At the end of the day, you don’t need to explain it or justify it. I think the other thing is I felt justified, I needed to justify it. Like, well, I’m sick enough to where you need to accommodate me, but I’m not so sick that you need to not include me. Does that make sense?
[00:58:12] Krista:
Here’s the analogy, Cheryl, that I use to help get myself over that is I think when people give their advice, right? My grandmother, my aunt, my sister, brother. All that. We’ve all heard that, right? Eat kale, do yoga, do all these things. And I think people may make suggestions with good intentions, but trying to explain to somebody what chronic illness feels like when they don’t have chronic illness is like expecting a man to know what it feels like to have a baby. They can have empathy, they can have some awareness, they have an idea of what it will be like, but they really don’t know, so I don’t put the energy into it. Yeah. If somebody wants to gimme advice, I’ll say thank you, because I’ll just, you take it or leave it, it doesn’t mean it’s gonna define me and how I — it’s oh, my gosh, you said to do this or that. Now I’m confused. I just don’t care.
[00:59:12] Cheryl:
Well, and that’s so freeing. It’s freeing to not care what other people think.
[00:59:20] Krista:
Yeah.
[00:59:21] Cheryl:
Like, yeah. I just, you don’t realize how much time you spend caring and altering your behavior based on what other people think until you stop doing it.
[00:59:33] Krista:
And it’s not being rude. It’s really just self-preservation and just recognizing that you don’t need that validation.
[00:59:42] Cheryl:
Yeah. That you don’t, yeah. Not just, oh, I’m gonna make it a goal not to care what other people think. Like, I actually truly don’t. Yeah. It’s a work in progress for me. It fluctuates. Like, I’ll have periods of time where I will successfully feel that way. But other times I’m like —
[00:59:57] Krista:
Oh, it’s taken work to get there. It’s not just a decision one day, I’m just not gonna care.
[01:00:03] Cheryl:
No. No.
[01:00:04] Krista:
Yeah. You have to work at it so that it sticks.
[01:00:06] Cheryl:
I always love hearing people’s advice to newly diagnosed patients. Is there anything that you like to, you know, gosh, how do you condense it?
[01:00:19] Krista:
But actually, I’m very passionate about this. I am, I’m very passionate about this. And five years ago my answer would’ve been different.
[01:00:29] Cheryl:
Oh, okay. Okay. Tell me, lay it on.
[01:00:32] Krista:
What’s that?
[01:00:33] Cheryl:
Lay it on me. I can’t wait.
[01:00:35] Krista:
Yeah. So, I think — no, I believe that we can’t see our autoimmune diagnosis as having two points, right. We can’t — or experience of having two points, of diagnosis or doom; or diagnosis and cure. Because I think if we look at those as the two endpoints, we will always feel defeated. We can’t discount the journey of progress in between. So, not all things are going to line up as they may have pre-diagnosis, but we can’t let go of our — we can’t let go of our ability and our wins that are possible. One of the things, have you ever read Four Agreements?
[01:01:35] Cheryl:
Oh, yes. A while ago. I should reread it though. Yeah.
[01:01:39] Krista:
Oh, my gosh. Okay. So, that book resonated me with me so, so closely. But the one that I literally tell myself every single day is always do your best. And yeah, what that means is that stop trying to be a 10 and operate as a 10 all the time. You can’t do that as a human, and you certainly can’t do that with chronic illness. So, if you’re a four one day, be the best four. If you’re operating at eight one day, be the best eight. But when you look at all the options and opportunities that you now have with whether it’s diet, lifestyle, movement, there’s just so many things we can do, look at those wins and progress, and don’t just look at an end point because you’re gonna miss the quality of life in between.
[01:02:35] Cheryl:
Oh, so true. Yes. So, many people in the beginning, they just wanna find that end point of making it go away. Basically, it’s like rheumatoid arthritis is like a fly that I just wanna swat away, make it stop. Yeah. Yeah. Make it stop versus what are the opportunities? Yeah, yeah. No, I love that. That’s such good wisdom. Is there anything else that I didn’t touch on that you wanted to share with the audience?
[01:03:03] Krista:
It’s been 21 years. And I’m 50. And I never thought with a chronic illness and being at the age I’m at that I would be at probably the best place that I’ve been in my life.
Like what?
[01:03:20] Cheryl:
Wow. Wow. It’s giving me chills.
[01:03:22] Krista:
There’s so much opportunity and there’s so much quality of life and there’s so much possibility, and there are so many wins that we can achieve if we just allow ourselves to go through the process. And the process is ebbs and flows, right. Some days are absolutely going to suck. When I have days that suck, and I do, I just know that I’m not gonna be stuck there. So, I’m okay. Like, I’m okay with working through that, knowing that on the other side of it, whether it’s two days a week or whatever, that I’ll get through it and things will be okay. Again, I count that win, and I know that I’m not doomed.
[01:04:13] Cheryl:
It really resonates ’cause it’s, we can, yeah. There’s this idea that, again, the times when we don’t have pain or a lot of symptoms, those are the good times and the times that we have pain or fatigue are the bad times. But learning how to live moment by moment and see what can you still do in that moment can — are there still opportunities to connect to your values and what you love.
[01:04:34] Krista:
Can I make one more comment on that, Cheryl?
[01:04:37] Cheryl:
Oh, please.
[01:04:37] Krista:
Which I think has really been a huge mic drop understanding for me is I think when we’re diagnosed, we mourn our life, right? Yeah. we miss so much what we used to be and then we also think about what we could have been and we’re stuck in that two-sided mourning. I think we really need to not look backwards and stop trying to reclaim and relive what has passed. And if we really embrace possibilities and we look forward, then we’re gonna make strides in achieving possibilities and moving forward. Like, really position where we’re looking.
[01:05:27] Cheryl:
So, so true. And not looking forward at what actually is possible versus what we wish could be possible too.
[01:05:40] Krista:
And sometimes they’re one and the same, but if they’re not, that’s okay. Here’s the thing. What if it’s better?
[01:05:47] Cheryl:
In so many, yeah, I feel like, yeah, I was really wrapped into that, I’m invincible kind of achievement mindset like that you maybe alluded to a little bit earlier. And yeah, I feel like I’ve learned a lot of lessons earlier in life than I would’ve if I didn’t have a chronic illness in terms of, I have limited resources. Like, I can’t, I have to go to sleep every night if nothing else, much less having a chronic illness. So, learning how to be like, figure out what your limits are and craft your life around that in a way that still feels good and exciting, and that’s been big for me. But oh, this is so, I’m so excited for my audience — and I know it’s a little exciting for me to say that word ‘audience’. I’m gonna put all your information in the show notes, but just in case someone just is like listening and has their TikTok open and was like, what’s her name? Like, where can they find you on TikTok and Instagram?
[01:06:45] Krista:
Yeah, both are the same. So, TikTok and Instagram are @KickRA18, so it’s. K-I-C-K-R-A-18. So, Kick RA. And yeah, my Instagram I need to pay a little more attention to. I’ve been having way too much fun on TikTok.
[01:07:03] Cheryl:
Well, now you gotta put some of your TikToks on reels. That’s what I’ve been doing. ‘Cause reels, Instagram loves their reels.
[01:07:11] Krista:
I will do that. And what I tend to do on Instagram is put a little bit more explanation than what I can convey in a 15 second clip on TikTok, so.
[01:07:21] Cheryl:
Yeah. Yeah. Well, thank you. I really, really appreciate like all your wisdom and your story. Just, I really know that there’s so many people that are gonna hear this and feel really empowered, so thank you again.
[01:07:34] Krista:
Thank you.
[Ending Note]
Thank you so much for listening to another episode of the Arthritis Life podcast. This episode is brought to you by The Rheumatoid Arthritis Roadmap, an online course that I created from scratch to help people live a full life with rheumatoid arthritis, from social and emotional aspects of coping with rheumatoid arthritis, to simple physical strategies you can use every day to manage things like pain and fatigue. You can find out more on my website, myarthritislife.net, where I also have lots of free educational resources, videos, and more.
