CREW: And sound speeds.

Camera.

Andrea on the piano, take one.

INTERVIEWER: Tell us what it is,

Andrea.

ANDREA AVERY: This is Schubert's

Sonata in B flat,

the second movement,

the andante sostenuto movement.

[MUSIC - ANDREA AVERY, "SONATA

IN B FLAT]

My name is Andrea Avery.

I was diagnosed

with rheumatoid arthritis

30 years ago this spring,

and I live in Phoenix, Arizona.

I remember my first piano

lesson, and my piano teacher

said, wow.

You're just-- you're going

like a house on fire.

And I just became

obsessed with playing the piano.

I played at piano recitals

and piano competitions,

and I just thought, I figured it

out.

Other people have to wait

until they're grown-ups,

but I figured it out.

This is what I want to do

for the rest of my life.

The winter that I was

in the 6th grade,

I started to have symptoms

that I'd never had before.

I can remember sitting

in French class looking

at my thumb

and thinking, that knuckle looks

different.

That didn't always look

like that.

I remember my shoulder, just,

I could not raise my arm

over my head.

It was hot.

It was painful.

It was throbbing.

And I thought, what on earth?

These little episodes just

seemed to increase in severity

and frequency, until one day,

I hopped out of bed

and found that I couldn't put

any weight on my lower

extremities.

My knees just buckled

beneath me.

And my mom was working a night

shift, and so my dad was home

with me that morning.

And I said, dad, I can't stand

up.

I can't walk.

I can't go to school.

And he said, well, get back

in bed, and wait until your mom

gets here.

She'll know what to do.

That was probably when she

thought, this is not growing

pains.

This is not

delayed-onset muscular soreness.

This is a thing that's

happening.

And-- and she thought it was

arthritis.

She was right.

I received my official diagnosis

of rheumatoid arthritis

in May of 1989.

I left that appointment

thinking, all right.

So now, I have a diagnosis.

That's not going to change much.

My wrist will hurt every once

in a while.

It wasn't going to change who I

was.

It didn't rattle anything.

I probably went home

and practiced piano right

after school.

Throughout high school

and the first half of college,

I was able to be kind

of both arthritic on the one

hand and a pianist on the other.

That kind of all

started to end in 1998, right

before I turned 21.

I was stretching before a piano

lesson, and I felt the tiniest

ping inside my hand,

and these two fingers just

drooped.

And I thought, that's not good.

And that was the first time

that it was even hinted

at that maybe this piano thing

isn't going to work out.

This notebook,

this impressive notebook,

is a set of photocopies

of my mother's notebook

that she kept for all the years

of my illness.

So it's just interesting to sort

of track the symptoms,

and my mom's reaction,

and just all the information.

June 5, white bumps on finger

joints.

June 6, swollen glands,

coated tongue.

June 8, dry patches on skin

on chest.

June 11, right elbow swollen,

left index finger.

Piano, limit to 20 to 30

minutes.

I can tell you for sure that did

not happen.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

I changed my major from music

theory and composition

to just a BA in music.

I had way more music credits

than I needed for a BA in music,

but I was missing all

these general studies classes.

So I started filling my schedule

with classes

in the English department,

and I started to see

that the thing I'd always wanted

to do with the piano,

invent, and play, and be

lyrical, and be creative,

and make cool, interesting

things that other people

applauded or liked,

it started to seem like maybe I

could do that

on a different kind of keyboard.

Maybe I could do that

in writing.

I defected from the music school

and I became a graduate student

in creative writing.

I think what I love

about writing

that's the same thing I love

about playing the piano

or music is that it's

a language, that it's playing

with language.

And when I could write music

in prose, then I was no longer

an unhappy writer who wishes she

was a pianist.

I was a pianist at the computer

keyboard, and that's when I no

longer felt like that was

the great loss of my life.

I can no longer use all five

of my fingers.

These ones don't move.

These ones don't feel anything.

This knuckle doesn't bend.

But I can figure out a way.

I'm not going to play perfectly.

I'm not going to play

every note.

I might have to play it

below tempo, but it's music,

and I'm making it.

And I would much rather have

imperfect music that I made

myself then silence,

than no music at all.

That I'd rather be a sloppy sort

of approximate pianist

than a totally muted pianist.