My Story

This page is going to be about my story with my JRA. I will be updating this page frequently in order to keep everybody up to date as in the mission of my blog is to go through this bump he oath together! I will also be making another page for you guys to share your stories also you can comment your stories and I cant post them into the page!



First Post:

Ok my story to finding out that I have JRA began a little over three years ago even though I would find out for another to years. Ever since I was eight years old I had been having ankle pains in both of my ankles at the end of the day and would wake up from sleeping in pain, but my mom and dad thought they were just growing pains so they would send me back to sleep and that was that... after a couple years of this continuing  my mother asked my doctor to look at it and the doctor said it was just growing pains my mom was really stressed out about it so they just asked the doctor to take an x-ray of my ankles. Well the day after I got my x-ray I was called back to the doctor and he said he wanted me in air boots right away. Then e found out that I was diagnosed with a condition called Orthopedic OCD in both of my ankles. (http://orthoinfo.aaos.org/topic.cfm?topic=A00610) Well when we went to the orthopedic specialist in town he said that we should try putting me in a wheelchair and we tried that fro nearly a year but it didn't work. The orthopedic then wanted to try again with cast on my feet but we said no and we started looking for different doctors for a second opinion. We eventually were lead to Boston Children's Hospital and im glad we were the doctor in Boston said that he wanted to do surgery immediately and before I knew it I was in the hospital again November 9th 2013 for a ankle drilling of my left ankle. (They wanted to do one at a time) After going back to Boston every 4-6 weeks (I still am for my JRA) I eventually started physical therapy! (by this point I have been out of all activities and sports for about 2 years) After about a year of physical therapy I was discharged for physical and just had to wait for the doctor in Boston to discharge me on our next visit! I was going to be able to go back to normal!!!!! But then it happened on April 1st of 2014 I was in a car accident with my mother on the way to school... When we went to the ER they had found out that I had broken my back and my spine and shifted out of place a little less that 25% and that my sacroiliac joints had changes to them. I again went to Boston Children's for treatment because they have given by far the best treatment I could ask for! The decided to put me in a back brace for about 3 months. On later visits I began to get cortisone injections and at times doctors brought up the possibility of cancer which im am blessed it was not, but with my Rheumatologist she found out that I did have Juvenile Rheumatoid Arthritis... She started me on naproxen but it didn't get rid of my pain completely and she was worried about the JRA affecting me farther (I was going to need a hip replacement by 20) so she started me on Enbrel for it.( I might be able to go back to activities after 3 years without them in a little bit!!!)  Now I have only been taking this medicine for 2 weeks but it works wonders I am having less pain and I am amazed!!! and yeah it sucks that I have to give myself shots once a week but with this medicine my doctor and courage I know I will have the strength to not give up and I know you do too!