It took a couple of years to diagnose Pea's Juvenile Arthritis. I went through a few specialists that weren't really a good fit to get to the ones we have now. When she was younger the pain was intermittent and unpredictable. Plus, she was too young to verbally communicate what was bothering her. I understand that there may be health insurance restrictions. I chose … [Read more...]
I let my child make a medical decision and the nurse gave me crazy eyes
I haven't written about Juvenile Arthritis is a while. Why? Because we haven't had any juvenile arthritis flares. JA can be tricky like that. It slinks back into it's little hidey-hole only to charge back into our life when we least expect it. But last week, I walked into the living room to find my daughter sprawled out on our ottoman saying that she hurt. I thought she was … [Read more...]
My bulletproof baby
I'm bone tired this morning. I had a difficult time falling asleep and was up well past midnight. A couple hours later, Pea woke me up. She was wide awake, in what I have come to think of, as her pain position, knees up on a pillow, legs restlessly writhing. Calmly staring at me. Normally, our night time adventures start with her screaming incoherently about something … [Read more...]
What?! No more pain from shots? Yeah!
It is difficult to tell from pictures but Princess Pea is small. Not just preschooler small; she is fell-off-the-growth-charts-and-was-tested-for -dwarfism-small (It turns out that she's merely of Asian descent and small). It's okay though because her big personality more than makes up for her lack of size. When Pea was an infant, it would take a nurse, … [Read more...]
Operation: Perspective
November 2013 hasn't really been an easy month for us. To give you an idea, my miscarriage in October was just the pebble that preceded the avalanche. It has gotten worse since then. We have been in juvenile arthritis hell. A good friend told me that the miscarriage was probably for the best because there has been so much on my plate since then that it would have been too … [Read more...]