SAN ANTONIO – Nearly 90% of people surveyed by the Arthritis Foundation said they have pain that disrupts their daily activities. This reality is especially daunting for children, as hundreds of thousands of kids and teens across the U.S. are affected by juvenile arthritis.
Patton Taylor, a 20-year-old grappling with severe arthritis, shared her journey with the condition.
Taylor said she doesn’t remember a time when she was not hurting.
“I remember brief snippets of playing T-ball with my friends,” Taylor said. “Then those memories get shattered because I couldn’t run the bases because I hurt so bad.”
Patton was about 5 years old when this happened. She remembered hitting the ball but she said she just could not run.
“I couldn’t even stand back up,” she said. “The coaches had to come out and carry me back to the dugout.”
Her mother, Jill Taylor, vividly remembers the moment.
“The coach was like nobody touched her, nobody did anything. And we looked at her knee, and it looked like a softball,” Jill Taylor said.
What they thought was a simple injury turned out to be something much more serious.
After an initial visit to a doctor for X-rays, the family learned that her condition was far more complex.
“When he did X-rays, I’m thinking we’re just going to come home, that she broke something, that we were going to go home with a cute little cast and we’ll be done,” Jill Taylor said. “No, there were several doctors out there looking. It took him forever to come back in.”
Months later, a pediatric rheumatologist diagnosed Patton Taylor with severe arthritis.
“I can’t sit up. I do all my schoolwork in bed. I ice my back all the time,” she said.
For Patton Taylor, living with arthritis has been especially difficult because many times, the medications wouldn’t work for her and when they did work, she faced other challenges.
“The thing I was dreading the most was the side effects because I’d be out all week. I’d get invited to sleepovers, and I couldn’t do anything because I felt so horrible,” she said.
Jill Taylor added that even simple activities can be a struggle for her daughter.
“It hurts sometimes just to walk because she has it in every joint in her feet. At one time she told me it feels like glass. She’s stepping on glass all the time, every time she takes a step,” she said.
Patton Taylor has undergone three knee surgeries and receives steroid shots every six months. She is scheduled to have her TMJ joints replaced in December, a testament to the severity of her condition.
Despite the hardships, she remains hopeful and says she hopes in the future, there will be better medications and better treatments for children navigating a life with arthritis.
“I know life is always so scary and it’s not always fun, but I try to do my best and say it can always be worse,” said Patton.
For more information on juvenile arthritis and support resources, click here.
