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Amanda’s Story 

Daily medications and weekly injections are small reminders that arthritis will be a part of Amanda’s life until a cure is found. She’s working hard to make sure that cure happens. 

Amanda can vividly remember lying in bed as a young teen after taking a weekly medication and feeling nauseous. She told herself it would all be okay because there would be a cure by the time she became an adult. Although we are still working on finding a cure, Amanda has learned that she is not on this journey alone. She is a Warrior, fighting arthritis, for all of those who are suffering more than herself. 
 
With the support of her family, friends, coworkers and the Arthritis Foundation, Amanda can be a Champion of Yes. By having a positive attitude, she has gotten involved in activities that make her heart happy. She has been able to teach math for 11 years without missing a day of work, mentor her little sister, Faviola, through the Big Brothers Big Sisters program and help volunteer with the Arthritis Foundation.  

Although she can do all these things, daily medications and weekly injections are small reminders that arthritis will be a part of her life until a cure is found.  Her quarterly doctor appointments remind her how thankful she is for all the doctors that have helped her manage her pain. She is living proof that, although she has been living with rheumatoid arthritis for over twenty years, she can do what everyone else is doing if she puts her mind to it. 
 
As a graduate of Kempner High School, she is thrilled to serve as the first Adult Honoree for the inaugural Jingle Bell Run Sugar Land. Her hope is to raise awareness of this painful disease and raise funds to find a cure, because she believes no child deserves to lay in bed wishing and hoping for a cure like she did.