Meet Joshua!

Joshua’s story started as he finished up kindergarten. One day he was getting out of the van and his knee was huge. His mom, Jenny, says they were fortunate that she was able to take him to the doctor that day, as their provider immediately said, “this could be juvenile arthritis”. He was referred to Nationwide Children's Hospital for diagnosis, where he saw Karla Jones for 6 years before she retired.

After the diagnosis period, Joshua had a sedated ultrasound and injection. Jenny immediately started looking for information and ways to connect and that’s when she was introduced to Megan’s mom! Gradually, she became involved with the Arthritis Foundation (AF) and family events.

“When the opportunity came up to get involved with PR-COIN, get to know providers and researchers on a different level, and have a voice, I didn’t hesitate,” she said.

Jenny says that in her own health experiences, she had never had a provider ask her to be a research and QI partner, but with PR-COIN she found the a JA community became that has become a family.

Joshua’s story is “simple”. In total, he has had three rounds of injections, roughly a year and half apart each, can now do them in office, and does well in-between, but there really isn’t such a thing as a simple case that couldn’t use improved treatment, his mom says, and there are few humans who don’t need support and connection.

Joshua just turned 12 and has been in unmedicated remission for over two years. Medical advances are what make this reality possible, and learning networks like PR-COIN help to speed up the process and design more effective and robust treatment plans.

Visit our Get Involved page to learn more about how you can get involved in PR-COIN.