© Courtesy of the Daily Press

In 1987, Beverly Williams began a battle with rheumatoid arthritis. Williams was a 22-year-old newspaper reporter, fresh out of Virginia Tech, when her hands started to hurt. Her doctor sent her to a specialist who diagnosed rheumatoid arthritis. She took the news lightly. "But if I knew then, what I know now," she says, "I would have been devastated."

Over the years, her knees, hips, and shoulders started popping. One by one, Williams had them replaced with artificial joints. "I'm half me, half titanium," she laughs.

Despite all the pain and so many surgeries, Williams says she struggled the most with one challenge: giving up her independence. "It was a long time before I would ask for help," she says, "Now I don't hesitate for one second." She often asks male friends to help her with chores around the house. And at her request, the newspaper where she works replaced the knobs on the bathroom doors with bars that are easier for her to use. She even allowed her parents to help her financially. Though her insurance pays for the bulk of her prescriptions, Williams still spends about $400 each month in copayments. Her insurance paid for all of her joint replacements, which can be quite expensive. Each of her knee replacements, for example, cost $12,000.

No matter how much help Williams gets, though, she faces torturous first steps every morning. She did find some relief with Bextra (valdecoxib). In April 2005, however, Pfizer pulled Bextra off the market because evidence from the Food & Drug Administration suggested that Bextra could increase the risk of a heart attack or stroke. So, her pain continues. "You need a sense of humor," she says, "or else you'll be crying everyday."

Pain has become part of her life, Williams says. Recently, while leaving a friend's house, Williams tried to keep her friend's dog from escaping into the yard. As the storm door swung shut, her arm was caught inside. "I heard something pop," she recalls, "I thought I'd pulled a tendon or something." She continued to go to work, covering a graduation and other events. A week later, some of her friends were helping her off a low-seated sofa, and she heard her arm pop again. Thinking that her artificial elbow joint was misaligned, she finally went to her doctor. An X-ray revealed a broken arm, which Williams had walked around with for two weeks. "Compared to bone-on-bone grinding," Williams says, "that's nothing."