Juvenile arthritis impacts children and their families. The children are impaired by physical pain, psychological association with having an illness, and socially being unable to do some things other kids may be able to do. This topic is significant because it can change lives in the single moment. It has the power to make a person think about the next step or the next point in their lives differently.

To hear the doctor, say, “She’s sick, but we’re going to do our best to fix it.” And then watch as she’s put through test after test and appointment after appointment. To know that there is nothing I can do but wait and hope for good news. To see her put under with anesthesia just to get steroid injections directly into her inflamed joints. To discover arthritis caused a secondary disease uveitis that mimics arthritis but in her eyes. To learn that even with treatment she could go blind. To know that no matter what methods and medications we try, she may continue to have issues with her joints and vision in the future. To care and to love so much it hurts. This is life as a mother with a child who has juvenile arthritis. I think in the whole of society we need more people who will care and be compassionate that this child has this illness. We need more doctors and hospitals that choose to focus on and care for these kids. And finally, we need society to stop being so stereotypical and judgmental of the children and parents who had no choice but to deal with the impact of this condition being thrust upon them.

My daughter was diagnosed a little over two years ago. She was six. She couldn’t walk on one of her knees. My family and I assumed she slept on it wrong and was just stiff. The next day the knee was still swollen and heated to the touch. I knew something wasn’t right and immediately contacted her doctors. That is when our journey began. Her pediatrician had no idea what was happening to her body. The orthopedic couldn’t fathom swelling in a child so young without an injury to the area. Doctor after doctor until finally there was hope. A rheumatologist found the answer at the amazing Cook’s Children’s Hospital. Rheumatologists deal mainly with clinical problems involving joints, soft tissues, autoimmune diseases, vasculitides, and heritable connective tissue disorders. It was arthritis causing her joints to swell. What is most staggering about this illness is the many forms it can take. Any disease of inflammation of a joint or muscle is considered arthritis. “Juvenile arthritis affects nearly 300,000 children in the United States.”

Medications didn’t work, but steroid injections directly to her knee did. She was clear for months with just biologics, or disease-modifying agents, which can control severe disease more effectively, and the steroid in the joint. Humira is an injectable drug that changes the way her body responds to arthritis by controlling and lessening the symptoms. It’s the most common biologic prescribed to kids. Then another flare-up happened. The other knee and an ankle this time. The doctor knew by now what worked for her and what didn’t, so I watched her be put under again, anesthesia, to get a huge needle stuck in her bones.

Situation handled and under control once more, I believed I had a healthy child. Then the eye doctor found inflammation in her eyes. A side effect of arthritis called Uveitis that causes her eyeballs to inflame. We had no idea what was coming next and although the inflammation is no longer present in her bodily joints her eyes keep inflaming if she’s off the Humira injections for too long. What scares me most is the unknown and that is what we live with every single day…