One morning I woke up and I couldn't move any of my muscles.  When I tried, I experienced shattering pain.

My doctor said it was all in my head.

 I was in high school - a senior.  Every morning, I woke up, and slid out of bed to the floor, then slid down the stairs - because I couldn't stand up.  I also could not brush my teeth or my hair.  In the morning my muscles were locked tight, and any movement made me weak with pain.  As time went on throughout the day, my muscles "thawed" somewhat, and, by evening, I could walk and brush my teeth.  In the morning, my muscles hit the reset button and it started all over again.  I must have missed the school bus a hundred times.

Finally, my mom got mad, and told the doctor she KNEW the pain wasn't in my head, and demanded that he do something about it.  My mom is very shy, especially around doctors, so, this was very unusual.  She was really worried.  The doctor - present at my birth and those of my brothers and sister - wasn't up to it, and referred us to his new, young assistant doctor.

He listened to my heart - his eyes widening with alarm and disbelief.  He shot geezer doc a sort of a ticked off look.  

"Have you ever had rheumatic fever?" he asked me.  "No, never!" my mom replied.  (I don't think she knew what rheumatic fever was.  I certainly didn't.)

 "You have a very serious heart murmur, " he said to me.  

"What does that have to do with all this pain I've been having?" I asked him.  I wasn't following him.

"Well, I believe that you did have rheumatic fever about eleven years ago, and it has caused this pain - that's rheumatoid arthritis."  I couldn't believe it - I already had an old lady disease at the age of 17.  Oh, holy crap!

"It has also damaged your heart," he explained.  My mother's mouth fell open and she quickly covered it with her hand.  "When you get strep throat and it isn't treated," the young doctor continued, "it seems to go away, but it doesn't.  It goes inside your body and destroys tissue - about eleven years later." 

My mom was freaking - I could tell.  Even though she didn't make a sound.  

"You hardly ever see it any more," he continued, "because strep is easily treated with pennecillian."

He instructed my mom to give me aspirin for the pain, and to wrap my musles in heating pads.  He also told her I had to be taken to the hospital for testing right away, and then to a cardiologist.

The test at the hospital (my first fluroscope!) confirmed that I had inflammatory arthritis in all the large muscles.  

The cardiologist didn't earn any points with me.  He sent a letter to the old geezer doc beginning with, "(She) is an overweight, muscular female." 

If you were around in those days, you will remember that the look at that time was emaciated with no visible muscles and no hair anywhere on the body except the head.  And the hair on that head had to be straight, long, and blonde.  I had dark, curly, brown hair, thick eyebrows, and glasses.   I thought I was truly hideous.  

I hated the cardiologist. 

He told me to come and see him in twelve months.  He wrote a letter to my college to be, saying that I could take gymn.  "How bad could it be," I thought, "if I can't even get out of gymn!"  He also put me on prophylactic penecillian, "every day, for the rest of your life."  

"Oh, and, one of these days," he tossed over his shoulder, "you're going to have to have that valve replaced."

 That night was opening night for our senior play.  I was Bloody Mary in South Pacific.  We were all pretty nervous, but our production was really good.  After each of my solos, "Happy Talk" and "Bali Hai," I got an ovation.  It was intense!

Afterwards, many of the cast and crew gathered around me.  They made a circle around me, singing, "Bloody Mary is the girl we love, and ain't that too damn bad!"  It was one of the high points of my young life.

 Afterwards, one of the tiny, pre-growth spurt boys playing a soldier came up to me, and said, "Um, they asked me to ask you."  

"Ask me what?" I said, clueless.  

"To ask you," he said, "if you are dying."