Arthritis diary Telling stories Listening to people talk about how arthritis has a ected them gave Sjulian Worricker food for thought – and a chance to say thank you Sometimes I’m reminded how privileged I am to have a job that o ers me a window into ordinary people’s lives at extraordinary times. I’ve been meeting and recording radio interviews with a number of people with arthritis. Their stories were aired on the BBC Radio 4 programme You & Yours, and I felt that I was peering through a window into people’s lives, when others never get that opportunity. There were uplifting stories and sobering ones. In the rst ‘positive’ column, there was the seven-year-old girl managing to smile through operations and treatments, buoyed by a loving family and the support of close friends. There was the woman in her forties who was so valued in the workplace that her boss was prepared to make short-term nancial losses to accommodate her medical needs when rheumatoid arthritis took hold. But, in the ‘negative’ column, I heard stories of people who wanted to continue working – and were convinced they could – if only their employers would make the comparatively minor changes needed to keep them on board. The frustration felt in those cases was tangible; people who knew they could still play a productive role, if only the system would allow them. Making a di erence I recently went to the Kennedy Institute of Rheumatology, in Oxford, to meet some of the scientists who are working on current and future arthritis treatments. Here was a group of highly dedicated, talented people, whose work has made a massive di erence to many lives. I was particularly delighted to be able to talk to some of the team who’d helped develop the drug I now take, Humira, and say thank you. I was able to shake people’s hands – something that would have been physically painful in the past – and encourage them to keep up the good work. How fortunate was I to have that opportunity? One footnote to all that; leaving aside the sense of privilege I felt, the airing of issues surrounding arthritis again prompted a lot of correspondence from Radio 4 listeners and from people who saw coverage on the BBC website. It takes me to a recurring theme – the more we speak out, the more things might change. People could still play a productive role if only the system would allow them