Well, Mr. Voight told us to blog about things that intersted us or things that came up in our lives, so i thought that i would tell you all about something that dosen't affect me, but one of my best friends. I'm not sure how many of you know this, but Megan Johnston has a thing called JRA or Juvenile Rheumatoid Arthritis. While many people talk about arthritis a general term, there are actually over 100 forms of it. Rheumatoid Arthritis attacks the lining of the joints causing swelling and pain. It is caused when white blood cells move from your bloodstream to surrounding the joints and the lining surrounding them. It seems that the blood cells cause the linig to become inflamed. JRA is the same thing, except it affects children and adolescents, typically between the ages of 6 months to 16 years. There are three types of JRA: Polyarticular (the kind Megan has), which affects 5 or more joints, Pauciarticular JRA, which affects four or fewer joints, and the third is Systemic, which affects the whole body, including organs. Doctors dont know what causes this, but juvenile arthritis affects almost 300,000 children in the U.S. and it will stay with them the rest of their lives. For many people this disease and the constant pain that goes with it can cause every day activities like opening a jar to be nearly impossible. Many of us would give up if we were faced with such a situation, or i think that i would at least, which makes it so amazing that megan stays so active, as you probably know, being a very competitive runner and although her technique is pretty awful she manages to have fun and continue getting much much better at skiing even in the bitter cold which makes joints hurt worse than usual. So if you want to help theres a few things you could do. For instance you could donate to her JAM team! You can talk to megan or megans mom, maureen. She also appreciates apples, oranges, grapes, blackberries, strawberries, mangoes and sometiems carrots.