Juvenile arthritis currently affects 300,000 kids in the United States. Arthritis does not just inflict the elderly.
Over the last three years I’ve become friends with several children and young people who have juvenile arthritis. Daily tasks and activities that we take for granted are difficult or even impossible for them to do.
I will never forget the first time I heard a child tell a doctor that he could not hold a pencil long enough to take a test and asked what he could do about it. I will also never forget the smile on a teenager’s face (and her mom’s face) the first time she was able to make a fist with her hand because of treatment changes made possible through the afforts of the Arthritis Foundation.
The Arthritis Foundation provides support to these kids and their families. One way they do this is by hosting conferences where these families can learn how to cope from experts and from each other. These conferences also spawn friendships and support among these families that goes on throughout each year.
For the past three years, I’ve had the privilege of being a volunteer at the Juvenile Arthritis Weekend in Virginia. Feel free to go to http://www.flickr.com/photos/rogercarr/sets/72157604531502162/ and view some of the photographs I captured during the last weekend. You can also play a part in supporting the efforts of the Arthrits Foundation.
Your help is needed. If you have not yet donated at least $10 to this important cause, please click here and change a child’s life. Together we can make a difference.
Related post: What Is Living With Arthritis Like?
Yes– kids do get arthritis. I’ve had RA since I was 12 years old. While adults focus on what kids can and cannot do with arthritis, the challenge is that kids have to work especially hard at defining themselves outside of being arthritic. Everyone focuses on the disease, the treatment, and the debilitation. In these formative years, it is extremely difficult for one to define themselves any other way than the one that is getting all the attention.
The great thing about the Juvenile Arthritis events is that it often gives kids a chance to just be a kid.
Yes– money for research is important. But also money for fun and frivolity in a safe environment is crucial to the youngest of us with this really nasty disease.
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My friend Roger Carr is pursuing a goal over at the Everyday Giving Blog. You might have noticed the new badge on the left side of my blog titled, Help Stomp Out Arthritis which I’ve added to support Roger and
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Photo from Roger Carr’s Juvenile Arthritis Weekend SetYou can donate here The image is from Roger Carr who is raising money to support the Arthritis Foundation’s annual nationwide event, Arthritis Walk, that raises awareness and funds to fight arthriti…