We are celebrating Cure JM's 20-year anniversary by walking strong to Cure JM and hope you will join and support our team. 

This was written by Aiden:

It has been 1 year since I was medically diagnosed In Remission from Juvenile DermatoMyositis. It has been 6 years already, since the day the life I could call normal fell apart .. only at age 9, the young boy with spirit and a good heart fell into a dark loophole. Struck with a very rare life threatening auto immune disease that decreases the state of my skin, leaving it weak and vulnerable to sunlight, with heavy damage on my muscles and joints. It was a huge part of my life, It changed my overall perspective on the world, I matured, and it formed me into the person I am now. I had to adjust to a new life, it put me through a lot of hardships at such a young age but it washed my old memories of what I knew normal and gave me new ones to be forced to live with. 

I remember the endless hospital trips, the days where I couldn’t find the energy to even get myself out of bed, to do normal kid things. The amount of doctors telling me it would be okay, when we both knew it wouldn’t. staying overnight, the whole month of december 2018 that I spent in the hospital fighting everyday. To spring that onto a child so young.. with his life ahead of him.. planning his 10th birthday, getting ready to go to middle school, loving to spend time with friends and to play basketball. to take that away from me at that age, i could never forgive it. but it made me understand. understand the world isn’t fair, and if you get the short end of the stick you need to do what you absolutely can to catch up with the ones with the long end of the stick. and that’s what i did. i fought. it wasn’t fun, i have no pleasant memories. but to create pleasant memories you need to endure the harmful ones. no one knows who that boy could’ve been if he wasn’t affected by this, i dont even know. but i don’t want to know. as much as I hate this disease, as much as I blame it, even if it is in the past now, it made me into the person I am now. To think it has been 1 year since I got into remission, I’m in awe. I do not wear these stretch marks in pride, or this steroid affected body, but i wear it in strength, in courage, in redemption. I am proud of myself for my achievements. 

 

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• Advance four clinical trials
• Help kids get the best care
• Fund our largest-ever grant cycle, including investigating a new type of gene therapy