Well That Just Sucks

I recently found out that a family friend has, Shirley Charlton, has been diagnosed with a particularly nasty strain of arthritis - Polymyalgia rheumatica.                        
According to the Arthritis Society's site,  

• Polymyalgia rheumatica (pronounced pah-lee-my-al-jah room-at-i-ca) is a type of arthritis that affects the muscles.  It does not affect the bones, or the joints, which are the spots where two bones come together.
• It causes muscles to become stiff, tender and very sore.  This is called inflammation.
• Even though the muscles are sore they do not become weak.
• Polymyalgia rheumatica affects the muscles of the neck, shoulders, lower back, hips and thighs.
• It is believed that the pain is caused by the swelling of blood vessels in the muscles.
• Giant cell arteritis is a condition related to polymyalgia rheumatica. It causes the blood vessel on the front of the head to swell.  It can cause a person to go blind.

Polymyalgia rheumatica is a syndrome characterized by severe pain and stiffness in the muscles of the neck, shoulder girdles, low back, hips and thighs.  There is no corresponding weakness of the muscles. I am learning more and more about Arthritis as I go along and the more it just seems like it sucks. That's not putting it very eloquently, but sometimes things just suck and you don't need a fancy word to say so.  I'll be adding Shirley to the list of people I'm running for in Athens in November.