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.