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Welcome to the Team Page of
TeamSophie |
| Join Our Team |
TeamSophie Statistics |
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Money Raised |
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| Team Fundraising Goal: |
$2,000.00 |
| Total Raised: |
$2,830.00 |
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Members Recruited |
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| Recruitment Goal: |
10 |
| Members Recruited: |
15 |
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JOIN OUR TEAM!
After a 2 year hiatus, the Louisville Arthritis Foundation has brought back the Arthritis Walk! TeamSophie is looking forward to taking laps around Slugger Field to help raise awareness and support for those living with arthritis.
It may be hard to believe but Sophie has been living with arthritis and Uveitis for 5 years. She has been through so much during that time and her strength and grace have grown each step along the way.
She is no longer that frightened toddler trying to get out of being poked, prodded, and pricked by wrestling with my arms that are tightly wrapped around her. She doesn't cry at the thought of having to put countless medicated drops into her eyes. There is no resistance from her when we have to drive to the children's hospital every 4 weeks to be hooked up to an IV and receive medication to keep her body from attacking itself. She now bravely faces these things because she knows they are helping her live a better quality of life.
As if that news isn't good enough, we are seeing some really positive results from Sophie's body in response to the numerous treatments she has been receiving. Her joints continue to remain free from flare. She is quite active and enjoys keeping up with her 1st grade class as well as her little sister. Her Uveitis has a history of being very stubborn. That tide has turned since she had the lenses and vitreous removed from her eyes last year. We have gotten great reports from the last two eye exams. There is no flare in her eyes and only trace cells. Also, the calcium has not come back onto the corneas of her eyes. I am overjoyed to report that her eyes are as healthy as we had hoped they would be a year after her emotionally taxing surgeries.
Sophie has come a long way these past 5 years. I wish I could say she is nearing the end of this journey. However, this is a road she will travel for the rest of her life. She will continue to take daily doses of CellCept which lowers her body's immune system. This is to help keep her from forming antibodies to and essentially "rejecting" the Remicade infusions. (If antibodies are formed then the medication will no longer fight the effects of the arthritis and Uveitis.) She will remain on Zantac to keep her stomach from hurting as a result of all the strong medications being constantly pumped into her body. She will also continue taking steroid drops daily and Remicade infusions every 4 weeks to keep the negative effects of the arthritis and Uveitis at bay.
The next step in her treatment is to try and wean her off of the daily steroid drops for her eyes. We hope to bump her down to taking them every other day. Keep your fingers crossed because her eyes have not responded well to this in the past. I feel strongly that this time will be different. When we see that change is tolerated by her eyes remaining flare free, we will try to stretch out her Remicade IV infusions to every 5 weeks. Again, her eyes have not reacted well to this in the past and have flared slightly when we tried. I'm confident we will be successful this time!
*Sophie's journey is just one story of the nearly 46 million people living with arthritis. 300,000 of those are children. Arthritis results in 30 million physician visits and more than a half million hospitalizations. The cost to the U.S. economy totals $128 billion annually. As you can see, there is still a lot that needs to be done to find a cure for those currently living with arthritis and to keep others lives from being touched by a future diagnosis.
Please join our 2009 Arthritis Walk team. As a member of the creatively named TeamSophie, you will help Sophie and others by raising awareness and support for those living with arthritis. If you are unable to walk with us then your generous donation to the Arthritis Foundation will help ease the pain of your absence from the team. (Kidding!) ;-)
Feel free to forward this message along to any others that would like to walk with TeamSophie or donate to the Arthritis Foundation. You can also keep up with Sophie by signing up to receive email notifications for updates made to her caringbridge site @ www.caringbridge.org/visit/teamsophie.
Thank you so much for caring about Sophie enough to read her story, get involved, and give support! Keep reading below for a message from the Arthritis Foundation. *Facts taken from arthritis.org.
Thousands of people across the nation are joining together in the quest for a world free from arthritis pain. By joining a team and participating in your local 2009 Arthritis Walk, you will join in the movement to raise funds needed to find a cure for arthritis.
Team participation is FUN and EASY! A team is a group of people walking together to raise money to fight arthritis.
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