Last month we found out that Capri had Juvenile Idiopathic Arthritis (JIA). She started on a medication called Naproxen that she takes twice a day. Thankfully we have a really strange kid who loves taking medicine, we actually are able to get her to eat more of her meals by saying she can’t have her meds until she has a few more bites.

Unfortunately most kids with JIA need more than just oral medication to help their JIA so yesterday we went into the IWK Children’s Hospital for Capri’s first steroid injection into her knee. This was kind of scary because she had to be put out with sleeping gas. But I am getting ahead of myself. She had to stop eating at midnight the night before and could only have clear liquids until 8am that morning. She doesn’t get juice normally so we let her have apple juice and she drank 2.5 juice boxes in 1 hour. 

We first got to the hospital and our awesome rheumatologist Dr. Huber took a look at Capri to make sure her other joints were still doing good, and thank God they are. Her Naproxen has done a great job with her knee and she can bend it, but she still cannot fully extend it. After we saw Dr. Huber we went and waited in the waiting room where she was able to play with toys, and during that time she also was weighed, measured and had her vitals checked.

The nurse wanted to listen to her breathing because Capri was a bit stuffed up but she was okay enough to still have her procedure (which is good because it is a 2 hour drive for us to get to the hospital). We also met a little girl who has had JIA for 10 years and was also getting a joint injection that day. She said it was something she got used to and it was not very bad. It was really good meeting her and seeing a healthy and active 12 year old.

They took Capri back to the room and Stefan was allowed to go with her while they put her out. They said that most kids her age cry and scream with the mask and asked Stefan to hold her down. Stefan held her hand and told her she had to lay still so that is what she did. The doctor commented that he couldn’t tell when she was out because she was not doing anything and they actually had to close her eyes when they realized she was out. After that Stefan had to come back out with me and we waited until they called us.

As soon as she started to wake up they brought her out to us and we were able to hold her and spend some time in recovery while she woke up. She was allowed some more apple juice and then we went down to see our physiotherapist CJ. She said that we could start back up with her physio at home on Saturday. So we left the hospital and are now back home. For 48 hours she is not supposed to do a lot so that the medication will stay in her joint. Dr. Huber said it is not imperative that she stays perfectly still because she is 2 and that won’t happen. So we have been doing our best to doing activities and watch some movies.

So that is an update on our JIA adventure. We get to go back to the IWK in 2 months for another check up.