I’m fighting myself these days.

Here’s the mantra: To make RA easier to cope with, and to be healthy, you must:

1. Eat mindfully (which means eating, regularly, far more vegetables and fruits than meat, grains or dairy, and decline wicked sugar in all of its forms);
2. Exercise moderately for a half to a full hour each day (fast walking plus light strength training is a good way to do this);
3. Don’t do things that aren’t good for your body (smoking; drinking to excess or doing drugs; eating fatty, sugary, salty, empty-calorie snacks).

I know the mantra inside-out. Eating mindfully helped me lose a great deal of the weight I’d gained during a career spent mainly behind a desk, my eyes fixed on a computer screen, my butt in a chair). Eating mindfully is the only way to lose excess weight or to maintain a healthy weight, and doing so takes a great deal of strain off the joints in my lower body. Being lighter on my feet also helps me move more easily. There’s simply not as much of me to cart around.

Moderate exercise is good for many reasons: It speeds up a sluggish metabolism (banana-sluggish in my case). It burns calories. It strengthens the muscles that provide vital support for my joints. It gets my heart going, strengthening it as well. And doing some exercise gets me out of the house for a good dose of sunshine and fresh air while giving me a wider, healthier view of the world.

Smoking causes a myriad of health problems; I don’t need to go into detail about that. Drinking, ditto. Snacking mindlessly causes weight gain and can cause diabetes and high blood pressure.

The idea, if one follows the mantra, is to keep the body light, flexible and strong no matter what age you are or how affected you are by rheumatoid arthritis. I could repeat it in my sleep. And yet … and yet.

Since Christmas – and it’s been long enough now since then that it no longer works as an excuse – I’ve had a terrible time living the mantra. While I try to eat mindfully, it takes no effort at all on my part to rationalize mindfulness away and eat pizza and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches instead. Someone brings home a sack of potato chips, and I’ve got to have my share – or more than my share. Matt makes garlic bread to go with dinner, and yes, I eat my slices of it, even though I know that the white flour the bread’s made from turns directly into sugar in my blood. Same with potatoes and white rice. I’m even having trouble passing the candy display at the checkout counter in the grocery store without buying some.

Exercise? Hah. Yes, I walk Finny. It’s a good thing he’s around, or I’d not be doing even that. But they’re short walks, certainly not the sort that get my body moving or my heart rate up. I haven’t been to Curves for a workout in forever.

I’ve stopped smoking, but I still crave cigarettes Every. Single. Day. I’ve stopped smoking but I’ve succumbed and bought a pack, smoked a couple and threw them out. Then I did it again. I’ve never been much of a drinker, so in that area I’m good to go; I allow myself a small glass of wine with a meal a couple of times a month, which isn’t a change from the bad old days. I don’t do drugs, except those I take by prescription. But the snacking. Ouch. I’m craving salt, fat and sugar in a way I haven’t for a long time. I’m losing the battle to turn those empty calories down.

I still have 40 pounds to lose to reach a good weight and BMI for my height and age. Ten of those 40 I’ve re-gained since the holidays. My “skinny” clothes feel uncomfortably tight, so I’ve been blumphing around in sweatpants.

Yet I really, really want to lost that weight. I really, really want to be smoke-free and as healthy as I can be, in spite of being middle-aged and having RA. So what’s wrong with me? Why am I fighting the mantra so hard?

Here’s what it is: I know what I should do, but it’s easier to say, “tomorrow.”

Tomorrow I’ll eat the right foods in the right amounts, and say no to the bad foods. Tomorrow I’ll hit the walking trail with Finny McCool. Tomorrow I’ll toss out my latest blip in tobacco/nicotine judgement.

No, dear. It has to be today. Not tomorrow. No more being lazy about getting out for a walk. The weather is nice – you can’t even whine that it’s raining. And if it does rain, so what? You have an umbrella.

So the battle continues. I started the day with whole grain, shredde wheat cereal and soymilk. I have salmon in the freezer I can eat for dinner, along with brown rice and fresh asparagus and salad. I have walking shoes and a delightful little dog who would absolutely love to go on a long walk with me. I can go to Curves and do a light workout any day but Sunday. I even have quit-smoking patches in my medicine cabinet, leftover from when I quit the last time. I can start wearing them again until this nasty craving works its way out of my system, this time for good.

It has to be today. And then it has to be tomorrow, and the next day. I simply have to live one day at a time. I lost 50 pounds last year one day at a time. I know it can be done, that I can do it, because I did it.

So, having confessed my sins, I’m outahere. It’s 70 degrees out today. It’s time for a walk.

A real one.

Well, believe it or not, both Laurie (Frozen Woman: Life with Rheumatoid Arthritis) and Carla (Carla’s Corner) have selected me to be one of their five recipients of the Sugar Doll Blogger Award, which originated, in the RA blogosphere, with Lana (Living It, Loving It), who in turn got it from one of her readers.

The award is a sweet way to acknowledge bloggers who go out of their way spread warmth and joy to others through their writing. I’m truly honored and humbled that you chose me as one of them; thank you Laurie and Carla! What a treat!

Along with posting about the award, the recipient must reveal 10 Things about themselves that others don’t know, and then must send the joy along by choosing five more bloggers they read who also offer inspiration, information and smiles through their writing.

Easy, right? Hmmm. It’s funny how having to come up with ten, hopefully interesting, things about oneself is such a challenge! I don’t really think of myself or my past as particularly interesting to anyone but me, but here goes nothing:

Wren’s 10 Things

1. I came into the world half-baked and rear-end first, weighing just 3 pounds and 4 ounces. I spent seven weeks in a San Francisco hospital incubator before being allowed to come home, and my Dad said I was like a baby doll, barely as long as his hand. You’d never know it now, since I eventually grew to be of average size (and then some). But the evidence shows on my left ear. If you look closely, you can see it’s “not quite done,” flattened along the outer edge and with a little point at the top. I like to think it’s a holdover from my longago elfin ancestors.
2. I spent several grade-school years learning to ride horses in the Western style, but tended to fall off when I rode with a saddle. Using stirrups threw my balance off. So when we got Barney, the big buckskin Quarterhorse my sister and I shared, I rode everywhere bareback instead. Loved it and stuck like glue. Years later, I took English-style riding lessons in Germany – with RA – and still tended to fall off a saddled horse. Unfortunately, those ultra-tall Hanoverian steeds, RA stiffness and pain, and becoming suddenly airborne didn’t mix well, so I had to give up that lovely sport. But I still love horses and miss riding and working with them to this day.
3. I volunteered with a wild-animal rescue and rehab organization for a while when I lived in Washington state. I’ve drawn a bath for an American eagle; been attacked by an elderly squirrel named, appropriately, “Killer;” got knocked over and snuffled by a humongous but friendly Roosevelt elk; and once held the legs of a dying giant blue heron (which had been cruelly shot by a fisherman who felt it was stealing his fish, the jerk) while the vet tried in vain to save its life. The experience changed me.
4. I’ve been inexplicably afraid of heights, and of flying, all my life. But as research for a novel I was trying to write, I once took a flying lesson in a single-engine Cessna. With the handsome instructor ready to take the controls if I froze or seriously messed up, I took off from the airport, flew around for about an hour learning how the plane went up and down, did figure-8s, glided with the engine off for a minute or two, was greatly relieved when it started right back up, and then landed the plane again at the airport and taxied back to the barn. The instructor never had to do anything but talk. It was both exhilarating and terrifying, an experience I’ll never forget. The instructor told me I’d make a great pilot. I said, “thanks, but um … no, thanks.”
5. More research, this time about guns. I went with a group of shooting enthusiasts to a shooting range. I fired a .22; hit a 1000-yard-out, 3-inch target with a sniping rifle fixed with a scope; and fired a .357 Magnum. My friend, who was teaching me, caught my forearms and kept me from knocking myself out when that giant gun did it’s giant kick-back. It was good experience to add to my brief practice with an M-16 in Air Force basic training, where I somehow managed to hit the target enough times to earn a marksman’s medal, even though I’d never fired any sort of gun in my life. I was rather surprised.
6. I once lived with a 4-foot boa constrictor hiding somewhere in my house for six weeks. The beloved pet of my husband and daughter’s, he’d somehow gotten out of his enclosure. We finally found him curled up inside the back of the sofa, none the worse for his long fast. Whew.
7. While working for Army public affairs in Germany, I once chased a small herd of circus elephants around a shipping harbor, where they were to be loaded onto a ship for a voyage to the U.S. It was surreal and hilarious.
8. I was the managing editor of a newspaper in a small Sierra foothill community. Once, while covering a summer wildfire, I walked across a burned-black field to interview some firefighters, only to discover that my rubber-soled shoes were melting. Lesson learned. Another time, I managed to be right in the way when a helicopter dropped its load of fire-retardant and ended up knocked flat on my stomach, soaked in purple chemical. I landed with my camera protected underneath me, so I got my photos!
9. While I was in the Air Force, I once helped to control, by radar and radio, a flight of 26 live interceptor aircraft during a region-wide exercise, sending them out to the exercise area, controlling their intercepts of “enemy” aircraft for two hours, and then brought them all back home safely. When the exercise was over, I calmly walked back to the ladies’ room and threw up.
10. Also while living in Germany, with RA and even though I was still terrified of heights, I went snow skiing in the Austrian Alps. I discovered that I could ski without fear as long as I fortified myself with cups of Jaegertee – hot black tea laced with a massive dollop of Jaegermeister liqueur.  It made looking over the edge of the steep runs through the tips of my skis much less frightening and, when I inevitably went arse-over-teakettle, I laughed instead of cried. Jaegermeister =no fear. (I wouldn’t recommend this, though.)

And that’s it, gang. Now I’m passing the Sugar Doll Blogger Award on to SB, who writes Confessions of an RA Super Bitch, Polly of Pollyanna Penguin’s RA Blog, Remicade Dream, Terry of Dual Sports Life, and Andrew of Living Life with Rheumatoid Arthritis.

I hope this finds everyone feeling decent and enjoying their Friday. The sun is back out here in the Sierras, I’m feeling great today, and I’m just about to tackle the garden again, Finny in tow. Have a great day!

Today couldn’t have been more unlike Monday a week ago, when I wrote about wanting to go out and work in my gardens. I had spring fever in the worst way! And really, most of last week was lovely; I got a good start on the many chores that need done out there.

Then came the weekend. Gray, breezy and very chilly all day Saturday, then the high winds and rain pelted down most of the day yesterday. Last night it snowed for a while, then blew and rained some more. This morning, it was cold and overcast, but dry. That lasted until about 10 this morning, when the rain and wind started all over again.

And at 4 this afternoon, more wet snow, though it only lasted an hour or so. Huge,

Stellar's jay in the back garden cherry tree, May 2008

fat, clumpy flakes that came down and coated the springy green of the world once again. The weatherheads are saying the storms are moving east; we’ll have some more rain/snow tonight, and then tomorrow is supposed to be clear, cool and sunny.

As I cuddle deeper into my layers of clothing (I just took my fleece jacket out of the dryer and put it on; ohhh man that feels good!) and readjust the space heater down by my feet, I hope they’re right. My hands and wrists don’t appreciate all this climatic upheaval. They’re twingy and intensely achy. They complain as I type; as I hold Finny’s leash for quick walks; as I made a casserole for supper and emptied the dishwasher. I decided a month or so back I would get some light-weight dishes; tonight I was reminded why, again, I want to do that. My pretty Japanese stoneware, a birthday gift from Mr Wren and my folks five years ago, is just plain too heavy; when my hands are like this, lifting a single dish becomes a swear-worthy event.

Yes, I could have asked for help. But I didn’t want to, you know? I’m good at telling others to be mindful and not to be embarrassed or humiliated when simple chores turn ugly and painful, but I’m not so good at following my own advice.

On the bright side, I’m listening to the Stellar’s jays scream at each other in the tall

Black-headed Grosbeak photo by Velo Steve

evergreens and a little bit ago, I saw the first black-headed grosbeak of the season at the feeder outside the kitchen window. I wasn’t quick enough with my camera to get a photo of him, but he was lovely, his bright feathers a startling contrast against the snow. Every spring two pairs of them come to visit, and a few weeks after they arrive, the evening grosbeak couple shows up, too. None of them stay for long, but it’s always a joy to see them.

Update: Now my little wren buddy is singing, even though it’s raining. They have the prettiest song! I don’t know about you, but I’m still surprised each evening when it’s still light after 7 p.m. …

"Spring Storm" by Wendilee Heath O'Brien

Well, not exactly silence. I am, after all, writing words which (unless you read out loud) are sounding in your mind.

But “silence” applies, at least in my small world. Oh, there are sounds: the little shhhhhh of the space heater fan that’s warming my feet and legs and the rather ferocious March roar of the wind outside the open window (even though, yes, it’s actually April. It’s lion-like out there today). Then there’s the soft ticking of the keyboard as I type, and the susurrus of snores from the beasties on the bed, enjoying a nice Sunday snooze.

But there’s no shattery blare of noise and yackety-yakking from the television. No one is blasting industrial-techo-rock on the stereo. Still, I wouldn’t mind a little music; just something soft and melodic. Background, to stimulate creativity. Perhaps something classical.  Mozart would fit this quiet spring Sunday, with its lowering, tonal gray sky and blustering wind that smells of rainstorms. There will be more snow in the mountains above us tonight and tomorrow, but nothing more than sideways rain here. The rapid change in the weather and the barometric pressure has made my hands and wrists cranky, but I’m fighting back with tramadol and my Spidey gloves. No complaints.

I like silence. I like the soft peace of it.

As I did my morning ablutions I noticed that my face is ruddier than usual. In fact, I have an elongated triangle of redness on my skin below my eyes, right at the crest of each cheek. I looked at them, blinking. Triangular-shaped. Is that a butterfly rash? Ack! Lupus!

Then I caught hold of myself, reining in my too-vivid imagination. Nooo, silly wabbit. It’s a little sunburn. You’ve spent a goodly number of hours in the garden these last few days, soaking up the bright, cool spring sunshine. And were you mindful? Did you rub your SPF-50 sunscreen into your skin? No and no. I wore a hat and sunglasses and sleeves to my elbows, and jeans, but that was the most I did to protect my pale Scandahoovian skin from UV rays.

Of course I got a little sunburned. Pale skin plus rheuma meds make a girl look ruddy.

Nevertheless, back at my computer I googled “lupus symptoms” and looked at photos of the telltale butterfly rash that’s one of the disease’s trademarks. Heh. I don’t have lupus. But I do read too much.

Matt is marinating a big, 3-inch-thick tri-tip steak in the ‘fridge; it’s his favorite meal, so that’s what our Sunday evening supper will be, all broiled up medium-rare and sizzling. I’ve been trying to think of something to go with it, since I’m feeling chef-ish today. A salad, sure. But also something hearty and vegetable-y that I can disguise as not-good-for-you, since he religiously avoids foods that have vitamins or fiber in them, and I know he won’t eat any salad. It makes me smile that even though my daughter and her young man are adults, I’m still searching for ways to trick them into eating nutritious foods. When Cary was a little slip of a girl, I’d add a tin of mixed vegetables to her Kraft macaroni and cheese. She barely noticed …

Wow. I just thought of what I’ll make to go with that tri-tip!

Here’s hoping you all have a lovely, pain-free, quiet and enjoyable Sunday, filled with laughter and rest before the workweek begins. Namasté.

Note: This post isn’t about RA, but rather fibromyalgia. I don’t have it, but I know people who do. I’m curious about it.

I read a lot of medblogs out of curiosity and because I like to learn and enjoy expanding my knowledge and understanding. Some of these blogs are written by

Is it really all in your head?

doctors of various disciplines (emergency, surgery, general practice, etc.), nurses and paramedics; others are written by patients.

Some of the patient bloggers have been diagnosed, presumably by competent, caring doctors, with fibromyalgia. They write about the condition and how it affects them. And they express frustration over the fact that so far, no one has been able to pinpoint what causes it, mainly because it presents with no measurable physical evidence.

Nothing shows. Tests come back normal.

On its website, the venerable and respected Mayo Clinic describes fibromyalgia as “a chronic condition characterized by widespread pain in your muscles, ligaments and tendons, as well as fatigue and multiple tender points — places on your body where slight pressure causes pain.” To be diagnosed with fibro, a patient must experience pain in 11 of 18 trigger/tender spots on the body during a clinical exam and have experienced widespread pain for three months or longer. Studies have shown that people with fibromyalgia have somehow undergone changes in their brains that alter the way they perceive pain. They experience pain differently from those without the condition. The cause of fibromyalgia is unknown, but it might be linked to viruses, injury or emotional distress. Studies into the condition continue.

Many fibromyalgia patients take medications available only by prescription, such as gabapentin and Lyrica, to treat their pain. Gabapentin is an anti-seizure drug that, coincidentally, can be effective at relieving nerve pain. Lyrica, made by Pfizer, is the only FDA approved drug made specifically to treat fibro pain, and it’s relatively new. It’s also an anti-siezure medication that works specifically in the brain to change the perception of pain. It’s not an anti-depressive.

Almost all of the bloggers who write about their battle with fibro also write about their anger when their pain is casually minimized and dismissed by some doctors and other medical caregivers.

Many of them have been told “It’s all in your head,” They’re told they’re depressed or unhappy, and the pain is a result. “Think happy thoughts.”

It’s fairly easy to see why fibro is linked to depression; being in chronic, debilitating pain with no way to relieve it, and having to face doctors and nurses who don’t believe you has to be depressing. Really.

Many of the medical bloggers I’ve read express frank contempt for patients who have a diagnosis of fibro or claim to suffer from the condition. Sometimes their comments are mocking and quite cruel. Because they deal with so many people in their ERs and offices who fake pain (for a myriad of reasons), and because the pain and fatigue of fibromyalgia is a medical mystery, they don’t believe their patients. They see them as drug-and/or-attention seekers, or dismiss them as having psychological and/or psychosomatic illness.

My sister, who’s a respiratory therapist (and very nice person in most other aspects of her life), is derisive and unsympathetic toward people who claim to have fibromyalgia (although not to their faces in a hospital setting). In her opinion and from her experience, they’re all frauds.

According to MotherNature.com, “Fibromyalgia affects somewhere from three to six million Americans, 80 percent of them women.”

Surely , all of these people can’t be frauds. While I know that there are some people who fake illnesses for any number of reasons, the idea that three to six million individual patients would go to the considerable trouble of faking fibromyalgia is more unbelievable than the condition itself, as far as I’m concerned.

So what is it?

Is fibromyalgia real or not? If it’s real (and the Mayo Clinic and Pfizer seem to think it is), then why do so many people in the medical professions, from physicians to nurses to paramedics to respiratory therapists, believe it isn’t? Why would medical scientists and researchers give it a name and symptoms if it wasn’t real? Why would they risk their reputations on it?

My husband has been diagnosed with fibromyalgia, along with degenerative disk disease and osteoarthritis. The combination has disabled him; he was forced to retire at the age of 49 and is now on Social Security disability. He is frequently in pain and has, over the years, taken any number of painkilling medications, including narcotic meds and gabapentin. He weaned himself off the narcotic meds because he disliked being foggy and sleepy all the time; today he takes a low dose of tramadol in their place. And like many others who suffer with fibro, he’s been dismissed by some doctors who tell him “it’s all in your head.” Is he depressed? Sometimes, yes. Who wouldn’t be?

I think that people do sometimes have real pain and other symptoms that simply can’t be explained by modern medicine as it exists today. Perhaps “fibromyalgia” is actually a convenient catch-all word doctors use when they really mean “I don’t have a freaking clue what’s causing your symptoms.”

And if that’s the case, they shouldn’t be so quick to condemn patients who present with inexplicable pain.

Here’s a few photos from some of the work out in the garden I’ve done over the last

"Whatcha lookin' at? Yeahhhh we're sharin'. It's really hard, though."

couple of days. And some gratuitous pet shots. I can’t help myself. Note the PIB and Finny shot. I didn’t force them to pose like that, honest!

The front garden/driveway got the spring cleanup treatment first. I didn’t take pictures of it, but I cleared out some melting cardboard and other trash that was left over after Mr. Wren made a dump run the other day. Then I swept and swept. There’s more out there to do, lots of pruning and weeding, but I really wanted to get busy on the back garden, where we are growing vegetables now and will grow many more before the season ends in October.

No machete necessary, now.

The first thing I needed to do was make the path between the chicken pen and the first bed, which have artichokes and asparagus grown in them, walkable. It was totally grown-over by the climbing roses and shrub dogwoods that shade the chicken pen. So I took my trusty clippers to the viney, tangled mess. You can see the result. In fact, you can actually see all the way past the hen-house to the tarps in the neighbor’s yard. I also did a fair amount of weeding.

This pleases me. I like to be able to walk around the garden without needing a machete. But there’s a whole lot left to do. All those straw bales that formed the garden beds last spring and summer are rotting away; I need to cut the strings barely holding them in place, then break the straw up and rake it

Straw-bale gardening wasn't a total success last year, so once these beds are dismantled, I'm going to plant into the ground directly, unless I can get Mr Wren to build me some more raised beds. Not holding my breath.

out, all over the high, grassy weeds that are coming up everywhere. I’m hoping the straw will kill off the weeds, which become foxtails by late spring.

Then will be raking and tilling up the soil so I can plant. That shouldn’t take too long; I’m not going to plant a huge garden this year. Just a reasonable one. I hope.

I still can’t let Finny run loose in the garden; Mr Wren hasn’t gotten to the fence-fixing yet. So while

Mmmmm. Chicken on the hoof!

I was outside this morning, I tied him (Finny, not Mr Wren)  to the chicken pen. He’s fascinated by our old brood of Rhode Island red hens; they’re equally fascinated by Finny. So everyone was happy.

Eventually, Logan wandered over to see what that little party-crasher was so excited about, yawned (chickens are no big deal to Logan) and flopped in the shade of an old cedar. It’s the closest the two dogs have gotten to each other voluntarily since Finny moved in. Slowly but surely, the pack is accepting him.

And now, I’m taking a rest.

It's not hot yet, but the shade is still nice ...

Albinoblackbear notes in a post on her blog, Asystole is the Most Stable Rhythm (no kidding?), that doctors frequently have no idea why some drugs for rheumatoid arthritis work. Or don’t work. ABB is a Canadian nurse who’s in med school in Ireland at the moment; the future doctor offers a quote from a 2009 textbook on pharmacology and is charmed by its honesty. Go take a look.

It’s no surprise to me that doctors and medical researchers are basically clueless about these drugs and how they work. They’re mystified by the disease itself, after all. They know that it’s an autoimmune disease in which a person’s antibodies attack her own tissues, but they don’t really know why. Nor do they know why it affects three times as many women as men; or why one person will be quickly disabled by it and another not. RA is an enigma.

Still, it seems that each year brings them, and us, a little closer to the answer. When I was diagnosed with RA, my doctor first put me on increased dosages of aspirin. Then he added NSAIDs. Over the years, we tried plaquenil (originally a drug used to fight malaria) and oral gold. None of them had any effect on my symptoms. I’ve since learned that methotrexate was beginning to be used frequently by 1987; that was never offered to me, though. I think perhaps my doctor, who was an internist and not well versed in treating RA, may not have known about it. Or perhaps he did, but the U.S. Army in Europe’s medical system didn’t have it in their formulary.

No matter. I discovered two summers ago, when my rheumatologist started me on it, that I couldn’t tolerate MTX. It made me feel like I was on the brink of death. After three months during which the only affect it had was to make me feel horrible, he replaced it with Arava. I’m still taking it; the only side-effect I’ve noticed is that it’s making me slowly lose my hair. As long as it doesn’t all fall out all at once, leaving me bald, I can deal with it.

And now, there are biological drugs which help some people with RA a great deal. “Some” is the operative word, however. They help some people for a while, then stop, too. Or they don’t help at all. Or they help as long as the person is taking methotrexate too. Or. Or. Or.

I get frustrated when the meds I take don’t seem to have much, if any, effect. But I’m beginning to understand that my doctors are just as frustrated as I am. And just as mystified. Oddly, that makes me feel a little better about it.

Yesterday was sort of rough. Achy hands were a little achy-er and, just to toss in something new, my right knee flared mildly. It wasn’t enough to slow me down, but each step on that leg came with a low, mean twinge that I couldn’t ignore, try as I might.

After a good night’s sleep (in spite of Finny and PIB, who have decided not to bug each other at bedtime and who sleep mere inches apart while tucked up close against me, making each of my turn-overs during the night a sort of gymnastic work of art, as neither of them moves), my hands are back to normal (mildly sore) and that ominous twinge in my knee is gone entirely. I’m relieved.

I’m re-learning rheuma, re-learning how to react when one of my joints decides to flare. Unlike the past, when a twinge in a knee was a warning of imminent agony and disablement that could last for half a day to a week, these days those twinges just seem to peter out. I hope that means the cocktail of drugs I’m taking are doing their jobs, even if imperfectly, at stopping the inflammation before it gets out of hand. And I’m grateful. My memories of the flares I went through during the first 10 years after I was diagnosed with RA are nightmarish. But it’s a different beast now.

Spring 2009's straw-bale garden before planting.

The storm that brought a couple of inches of snow, hail, sleet, grauppel and rain has gone, flying over the mountains to the east. Today the sun is out and everything is sparkling with wet diamonds. There are still patches of glistening, crusty white snow in the shady areas, and it’s cold enough that my breath steams, but it looks like a fine day to get out in the garden and start cleaning up and prepping it for spring planting. I have dreams of roma tomato vines and pretty green-and-purple aubergine plants, of colorful bell peppers, leafy heads of romaine and butter and oak-leaf lettuce. And beans — I want to plant beans this season — fava beans, green beans, black beans.

There’s a lot of pleasant, calorie-burning, muscle-stretching work to be done out there on our little 1/3-acre garden. I’m looking forward to being out there, soaking up the warmth and Vitamin D from the sun. Already the clematis plants are sending out their long, delicate vines, which brush my face when I pass beneath them. They need to be trained to the trellises. And of course, there’s a winter’s worth of clean up to do. Each storm left more leaves and pine needles on the ground; it all needs to be neatened up in celebration of the sweet weather ahead.

Inside, windows need washed and thrown open to the fresh, clean air, cobwebs in the corners need swept away, and the ever-present ash, dirt and wood particles around the wood stove and the firewood ring need cleaned up. The sunshine offers up dust on surfaces I couldn’t see when the daylight was dark and gray. There’s so much to be done.

Today, after a long weekend spent mainly indoors, watching the wild, last-of-winter weather wreak havoc, the world outdoors beckons me. That’s where I’ll start, tackling one bright chore at a time. I’ll do my best to be mindful of my energy and my joints — rheuma is always in the wings — but I’ll enjoy each thing I accomplish today. Spring is here. Summer is on the way. Today is a celebration.

Photo by Stephen Crowley/The New York Times

I just read in the New York Times about a program that matches service dogs to war veterans with PTSD. The dogs are trained by imprisoned convicts in a separate program called Puppies Behind Bars.

I’ve loved dogs from the time I was a very small child. I used to nap as a three-year-old with my head on the belly of Jake, our long-suffering and extraordinarily gentle boxer. As the years passed, we had a poodle, Boston terriers Hector and Albert, and boxers Pete and Mugs. I moved away from home, joined the Air Force, and missed my four-legged companions fiercely.

But it wasn’t long before I had dogs again. There was Annie, a miniature dachshund. Greta, a mutt-mix of pug and who-knows-what. Max, the wire-haired dachshund. Nessie, a rescued Lab/Doberman mix, the sweetest-natured dog I’ve ever known, apart from my current lil’ buddy, Finny McCool. There’s Logan, a Queensland heeler/border collie mix, the other dog who is still an integral part of my family. And there was my parent’s compassionate, funny old boxer Mugs, the second with that goofy name, who died of old age just last year.

Mugs helped my father recover after his last heart surgery. As Dad walked slowly and precariously along the back deck, building his strength back up, Mugs walked along with him. Back and forth, back and forth. When Dad died eight years later, Mugs became my Mom’s closest companion, her friend, and her living link to sweet memories of her late husband. He brought her through the devastation of grief, showing her as much, if not more devotion as he had my Dad, right up to last day of his life.

All of these Good Dogs have cumulatively given me a half-century of love, joy and laughter. I cannot imagine how much less full my life might have been without them.

And now, to read that other good-hearted, loving dogs help men who have faced and still face years of their lives locked up in prison makes me misty-eyed.

But that these same men are training these dogs to help veterans who have been injured in mind and body in war, who have given their youths and the best, most productive parts of their lives to serve their country, who are broken, changed and in need their love and devotion makes me bawl.

Please read the story. And be sure to watch the video linked in the sidebar.