We need to raise more awareness so everyone knows that
Kids Get Arthritis Too, but we also need to raise money. The money donated to
the Arthritis Foundation funds research, advocacy, and community support
programs (including camps for kids with juvenile arthritis and scholarships to
the Juvenile Arthritis Conference every July). Please help raise awareness and
money by buying these great t-shirts...which are also available in kid sizes!
The t-shirts also make great team shirts for the 2015 Walk to Cure Arthritis.
All money raised will be donated to the Arthritis Foundation, Eastern PA
Chapter on behalf of Abby's Army.
My daughter Abby was diagnosed with JA when she was 20 months old. She was diagnosed only 4 weeks after her first symptoms. For 7 months, she was in constant pain, taking medicine three times a day, going to physical therapy twice a week and seeing a pediatric rheumatologist every 8 weeks. Then, as quickly as her first symptoms appeared, they disappeared.The disease became inactive and remained inactive for more than 2 years.
She has been very fortunate with the course of her disease so far. Most kids suffer for months or years before receiving a diagnosis, and many never have even a month to enjoy disease inactivity. There are 300,000 children in the US with arthritis, but only about 250 pediatric rheumatologists to treat them. More children have arthritis than have pediatric leukemia, muscular dystrophy, sickle cell anemia, AND cystic fibrosis. It's the #1 cause of acquired disability in children and causes 50 children to die each year. It's an autoimmune disease that can cause blindness and can attack ANY joint, muscle, tissue, and organ. The treatments and their side effects are often as bad as the disease. Kids with arthritis are more likely to develop cancer, have a shorter life expectancy, age faster, and have an increased risk of heart disease, stroke, anemia, lung problems, infections, and depression. Many kids with arthritis have never known a life without pain, which is why the rate of depression in kids with JA is as high as 30%.
BUT THERE'S HOPE! There has been a lot of advancement in treatments in the last decade, and every day we get closer to a cure. If we BELIEVE and raise awareness and funds for much needed research, wewillCURE JA! As the back of the shirt says, we're "Wishing, Hoping, Thinking, Praying, Planning, Dreaming"... for a cure for juvenile arthritis.
