t all started when Stefanie Foster Freeman, HHC, was a child. At the age of three, she began showing symptoms of an insidious disease. At first, she thought nothing of it. When her hip pained her too much to walk, she let relatives carry her. It wasn't until later that she and her family realized how momentous that first burst of pain was for her life journey.

Eight years later, she was officially diagnosed with what was then called juvenile rheumatoid arthritis. In this memoir, Freeman candidly chronicles the effects that diagnosis had on her life and her dogged search for alleviation and treatment.

In addition to her personal struggle with JRA, Freeman shows the many ways the medical establishment let her family down. But eventually, her grief and frustration with traditional medicine led her on a new journey toward finding relief. The solution she found will give any arthritis sufferer hope.

JRA now has a different name-juvenile idiopathic arthritis-but the disease is still the same. Freeman hopes that sufferers will find hope and comfort in her story.