Getting Up is Hard to Do : Life with Rheumatoid Arthritis [Paperback]

Wanda James (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 30, 2000

This is a personal account of a young life turned upside down by a vicious, widely misunderstood disease. It opens with the author's collapse on the job as a licenced automotive technician (one of the first females in the region)and progresses through a haze of misdiagnoses, premature rehabilitation, battles with insurance companies and Social . It continues on to describe reactions to various medications, struggles with ongoing depression, and subsequent losses of identity and self-esteem. The author compares herself to the Tin Man in The Wizard of Oz - rusted solid and in search of something essential to us all - good health. The story is told with honesty and humor. It is a real person account of life with Rheumatoid Arthritis.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"...the author describes rheumatoid arthritis and the impact it can have and attempts to raise awareness." -- Abilities Magazine

"James tells her story with humour and unflinching honesty." -- Arthritis News Magazine

"The book also serves to restore hope and renew the energy required to continue the day-to-day fight." -- Arthritis new, information, and support

About the Author

Wanda James has recently returned to writing, an early love, after such career variety as Forestry Technician, Word Processor, Watercolor Artist, Automotive Technician and Graphic Designer.

She has been published in American Woman Motorscene Magazine, as well as Arthritis News Magazine, and has placed in and won various fiction and nonfiction competions.

The author is currently working on her next book about women in the automotive industry.

Product Details

• Paperback: 152 pages
• Publisher: Little Bear Publishing Company (June 30, 2000)
• ISBN-10: 0968703607
• ISBN-13: 978-0968703601
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,793,168 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars What it is truly like to live with this condition, July 4, 2001

By 

Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Getting Up is Hard to Do : Life with Rheumatoid Arthritis (Paperback)

In Getting Up Is Hard To Do: Life With Rheumatoid Arthritis, Canadian author Wanda James notes that not only does the wide-spread medical condition of arthritis cost its sufferers more than 70 billion dollars annually, it is also the leading cause of long-term disability in North America. James also reveals that the notion of arthritis as being restricted to the elderly is simply incorrect and is a condition that afflicts infants, children, teens, young adults, and the middle aged as well. Highly recommended for his insights, candor, thoughtfulness, and humor, James' Getting Up Is Hard To Do reveals to the reader what it is truly like to live with this condition which is highlighted by unrelenting and severe pain; immobility; harsh medications with their assorted side effects; loss of self-esteem, loss of career; loss of what so many of us simply take for granted -- our health.

5.0 out of 5 stars Insightful book, June 10, 2011

By 

love4janeausten "L4JA" (Ohio, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Getting Up is Hard to Do : Life with Rheumatoid Arthritis (Paperback)

I would recommend this book to anyone living with RA! It is helpful in understanding the feelings that go along with having a debilitating disease. It also helped my friends, that do not have RA, to understand how I felt. The poem on page 98 is very insightful and I realized that I felt the same way. Ms. James is an inspiration to keep going!

If you have RA, get this book but Please don't pay the crazy prices on here!!!

To order the book, email [e-mail], or phone [phone], or write P.O. Box 45, Morewood, Ontario Canada K0A 2R0.