This is where it all begins.

Hello everyone,

      My name is Callie and this blog is all about my journey through life with a rare chronic illness called Juvenile Dermatomyositis, or JDM for short. Juvenile Dermatomyositis is an autoimmune disease that causes muscle weakness, fatigue, and rashes along with multiple other complications. The treatment varies from patient and most children see remission, some on the other hand have a difficult time fighting this disease. 
      Growing up I was always the healthy child. I was active and I loved to play sports. My parents often noticed and joked with me about not being able to run as fast as others my age or be able to play as long as they did. As I grew up I also developed terrible "growing pains" in my legs. All of these things we just thought were normal. That was until January 6th of 2012. Me and my two sisters woke up very ill. Not being able to keep anything down. The only difference is that they got over the little bug and I never did. My mother took me to doctor after doctor to find out what was wrong. Most said it was mono but my moms motherly instinct told her otherwise. She wasn't going to stop until we could find someone who could tell us what was definitely wrong with me. 
    After two months and no answers my mom took me to children's hospital. When I arrived at the emergency room on March the 6th I was severely dehydrated and malnourished because I had not been able to keep anything down for those two months. Right away I was assigned to the gastro team. Little did anyone that my issue had nothing to do with my stomach and everything to do with my muscles and autoimmune system. After a number of test the decided it was best to admit me into the hospital and good thing they did.
      The next day that I woke up and they came to take blood work I knew that it was going to be a long day. I felt the worse I had felt since I had gotten sick and I didn't know why. Well when the blood work came back showing that my CPK levels were through the roof the doctors started to realize that there was something deeper going on. So they brought in a rheumatologist and man am I lucky they did that! In walked Dr. Brown, the best rheumatologist in the south! She was very concerned that I might have this disease called JM and she said that we would do an MRI before we did a muscle biopsy to make sure we were taking a sample from the right area,but of course with my luck the MRI machine was down and the part would arrive after the procedure was down and over with. No need to fret though because Doc Brown had all the evidence she needed to prove that I had JM. Well at least that's what we thought.
      Only a couple days after being sent home and starting intense medications to help calm my immune system we get a phone call saying to stop all medications because they think I had something called a VL-CAD deficiency. So we did as we were told. We then proceeded, for a month after I was released from the hospital, to make trip after trip to children's hospital in search of answers. It was almost 6 weeks that I had been off the medications and everyone could see that I was coming down from the little boost and I was coming down quick. So Dr. Brown acted quickly and started me back on all medications. She was right to do so because my body has been responding great to the medications. 
      As the blogs go on I will dive into further detail about my journey through life with JDM. There have been many ups and downs. I will be the first to admit that it hasn't been easy on anyone in my family but I will say that I know only something great will come from this. You will get to read about I no longer take for granted the simple things and how I have helped others.  You will also get the opportunity to help me help others. And most importantly we will grow together. Just because you might not be going through the exact thing I know that we all have mountains to climb in life and we all need someone there who can help us through. It might not always be easy but it is always worth it. 

You can learn more about my disease at www.curejm.org