Newsletters

May 2002

Juvenile Rheumatoid Arthritis

Andrew has been diagnosed with this arthritis. We thought we would take some space to share with you a little about what we have learned about this chronic disease.

JRA affects 1 out of every 1000 children. Andrew has the most common type, with less than 5 joints being affected. Right now it is his left knee and possibly his left ankle that are affected. 90% of children are in remission within 2 years.

The inflammation will have times when it flares up and times when it goes away.  It is also painful and Drew can’t straighten his leg nor bend his leg all the way.

We will be visiting the pediatric rheumatologist every 3 months. We will also be visiting a pediatric opthamologist every 3-6 months for 10 years to monitor for inflammation in the eye which can lead to blindness if not detected soon enough, but can easily be treated with eye drops.

How is this affecting Andrew? If you saw him you might notice a limp, but he runs, jumps, climbs and gets into trouble like any other 2 year-old. He is taking medicine twice a day and we are stretching his leg every day. He tolerates the stretching well, maybe because that’s the only time when he’s allowed to watch his Winnie the Pooh video. (He has started asking for “Pooh” and doing the motion of bending his leg at the same time as his way of letting us know he is ready to watch the video!)

We are very thankful to have a good team of people caring for Andrew. We were really impressed with everyone we met at the hospital.

We are thankful for all of your prayers. We are reminding ourselves that God knows what He’s doing and we don’t have to understand. Please continue to pray for Andrew, that the swelling and pain will go away quickly and that he won’t have any negative side effects to the medication.

The Year in Pictures

Here are some pictures from throughout this past year that have not yet appeared in this newsletter.

(In order below)

Students arriving at our weekly meeting called Cru  

Some of the guys Nate led this year before Bible study at our house

A main session at Christmas Conference in Indianapolis

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