As the years have passed and I’ve watched rheumatoid arthritis rage through my body, chewing up joints and spitting them out before moving on to the next, I’ve wondered what would happen when it ran out of limbs to destroy, writes Emma Suddaby.

After all, a body only has so many hips, knees, elbows and shoulders and mine are nearly all titanium now.

I’m not sure now why it didn’t occur to me to worry about my spine, the most important bone of all, but I suspect I’ll be making up for it with lots of worrying about it from now on.

Because it turns out this horrible, relentless, unfathomable disease has been eating away at my spine and surrounding structures to the point where my neck is in danger of breaking.

Of course the wonderful surgeons are going to do their thing and swoop in to save the day but let’s just stop a moment to take in the awesome destructive power of a disease that can chew a person’s spine up over the course of a year or two.

I’ve lived with rheumatoid arthritis for 15 years, I’m well-used to the random cruelties it bestows but even I’m shocked that a condition that sounds so tame could go this far.

Now I’ve whinged through many column inches over the years about the outlandish and over-the-top splints I’ve had to wear after surgery on my hands, arms, feet and legs.

It’s usually something made out of a dead-skin, beigey coloured plastic with scary ironmongery, bars and attachments and wide, velcro straps holding it all in place. And of course it usually has to be worn over the clothes – just the look for the girl about town.

Well, get ready for some serious whining because my latest crisis calls for the daddy of all splints, the ‘halo’.

For those who don’t know what a halo is – and I’m wishing I was one of you – it’s a metal cage that sits around one’s head, screwed into the skull in four places, with vertical bars at the front and back, connecting to a permanently attached jacket which holds it all in place.

And I’ll be wearing it for the next three months, until it has stabilised the situation enough for surgeons to go in and fuse my neck by bolting the back of my skull to my spine.

So watch this space for regular moaning and progress updates. But don’t expect to see me out and about too much because if all goes well, the neck might just survive but the hairstyle most certainly will not.