April West National Honoree

Quest-4-West: National Walk Honoree Doesn’t Let Arthritis Slow Her Down

Her journey with arthritis began as a 21-year-old college student. One morning, April N. West woke up feeling like she had exercised vigorously the day before. The pain in her ankles, knees and hips was unbearable. Then without health insurance, she relied on over-the-counter medication for relief, but the pain didn’t go away.

While visiting family in Florida, April remembers coughing so profusely that she had to rest on their couch the entire time. At that point, she knew something was seriously wrong – and soon found herself hospitalized. After much deliberation, her doctors all agreed that an autoimmune illness was causing her body to attack her joints and vital organs, including her lungs.

Officially diagnosed withrheumatoid arthritis(RA), April had no idea that moment would mark the beginning of a lifetime of taking medications, hospital stays and adapting to a totally new lifestyle.

Which cocktail of medicine will work?

“When first diagnosed, the treatments I received were pain pills, steroids – a variety of different cocktails to see which ones worked best to control my symptoms,” says April. “But I was still stiff and achy.”

At the time, she lived in Savannah with her grandmother, who had to help her get dressed every day. “Sounds crazy, doesn’t it? My grandmother, helping her 22-year-old granddaughter get dressed. But my joints were deteriorating rapidly.”

最后艾普丽尔找到了新的希望,她的风湿病医生建议她服用生物制剂,以减缓她关节的恶化。多年后,艾普莉说,“我每两周给自己打一次针。生物制剂仍在发挥作用,告诉我的身体停止攻击自己。我不再积极恶化,只是保持现在的状态。”

April says she also gets tremendous relief fromacupunctureandmassage therapy, and in her spare time she crochets to keep her hand joints moving and flexible.

A positive attitude, resilience and taking charge

艾普丽尔的态度很好,这使她的生活在过去的几年里保持平稳。她积极的态度和韧性也感染了其他人。“我不会让我的助理拖累我,”她说。“早上,我会在那里躺一会儿,直到我的关节有点暖和起来,但我知道事情必须发生,我必须让它们发生,一些讨厌的、吱吱作响的关节不会阻止我。”

We are privileged to salute April West, the Arthritis Foundation’s 2016 Walk to Cure Arthritisnational adult honoree. Her team,Quest-4-West, is among the Atlanta area’s top fundraising teams. April is doing amazing work to raise awareness about arthritis. And she inspires us all to raise our own voices – as Champions of Yes.

“I want others to know arthritis isn’t just something elderly people get,” says April. “It attacks children and young adults. It will pick any random person and decide that your body, your joints, your organs are a foreign agent, and it starts to break your body down.”

April’s advice to family and friends

“Have a little bit of compassion, some patience and support us in any way you can.”

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