May 2: Weekend

My mum has had arthritis since she was twenty-one. One day, sat on a train, it just came on, as far as I can recall. Her knees were locked - she couldn't get up. Since then, she has battled on and off with it. It's always there but sometimes it's better than other times. Over the years, she's tried all sorts to ease it. Fad diets - no caffeine, no fruit. Various drugs. Steroids. Sunshine. Hot tubs. Holidays to de-stress. Lately, she's been on infusions of a new drug as yet not licenced by NICE. It's been doing her good until now. For the past month, she's been in awful pain. Not that she moans. She never moans. And if she does, then you know it's bad. My sister rang me in tears today. She'd spoken to mum this morning. Mum was terribly distressed as she wasn't able to open her hand. It had seized up in a claw; crippled; contracted. All this while the builders are at work - converting the double garage in her new house into a studio - a beautiful place where she can paint to her heart's content. She's a watercolour artist, and teacher, and very very good. When she was younger, it came down to a choice of being a pianist and teacher, or artist and teacher. She's often said it was a good job she wasn't a pianist, what with her crooked hands. Painting, despite the pain, has always been possible. I don't think I - as her daughter - ever pay this horrid disease the attention it deserves. I never really imagine how desperate it must be to have your hand stuck in a claw, unable to be opened, to have no control over this fusion of your joints; to have a feeling of your body curling in on itself. What a sickening illness. Arthritis - I want to say. Just hold off. Hold off so mum can paint in her studio. Paint the grey cows that lumber past the green, sloping, oak-tree lined field her window backs on to; paint the buzzards that patrol like fighter-jets; paint the sky. Hold off, I ask. Just for a little while longer. Just hold off.