Rowan VR

Quilt Due Date:

November 15th 2010

Quilt Theme:

Australian Animals (including the wilder ones - snakes, sharks & crocs)

Date Of Birth:

February 1st, 2007

Illness:

Polyarticular Juvenile Idiopathic Arthritis

 Rowan’s favourite things are: zoo animals, wild animals, sea creatures, crocodiles, Steve Irwin.

 Rowan lives in Victoria.

‘Rowan’s quilt is now closed’

BIOGRAPHY

Rowan was a big baby, weighing in at 9lb 8oz, born naturally to a little mum (4ft 11inches).

The pregnancy was a difficult one with mum suffering pelvic instability throughout, crutches from 30 weeks for 3 1/2 months, and suffering right foot drop during & after labour, rendering her unable to walk properly for a long time. Recovery for mum took about 2 1/2 years. 

Always a tough little guy, he didn't seem to feel pain like most bubs, didn't cry with his injections, and as a 1 - 2 year old would fall over, hop straight up, brush himself off and keep going. He always felt physically strong to us. 

But at about 2 1/2 he went from being a mischievious little toddler into everything, to spending more and more time sitting on mum's lap and playing with her hair. We noticed him slowing down and limping and generally not being his happy little self. 

We started going to the GPs but over a couple of weeks he got severely worse, to the point his knees & ankles were swollen and hot to touch, and he started getting us to carry him everywhere, then he stopped getting up in the morning. He would yell out "help me Mummy". I would carry him into our lounge, sit him in a chair and he would stay there until 3 hours later when he started to weight bear, all be it very awkwardly. 

A further demanding trip to the GP saw him seen by a Paediatrician, and then a Paediatric Rheumatologist at the Royal children's within a week. He was diagnosed with Juvenile arthritis, had corticosteroid injections into both knees and ankles, an eye examination, and a bone marrow biopsy to rule out leukaemia in one general anaesthetic operation at the Childrens on the following Wednesday.

Since then, he has had weekly injections of Methotrexate, been on daily Naprosyn (anti-inflammatory) and had varying degrees of pain consistently. He sees the Rheumatologist every 3 months now, and the Opthalmologist (for eye tests) every 3 months. At least he can do most things and knows when he needs to rest now at the age of 3 1/2. Unfortunately, however, with his immunosupression (due to the methotrexate) he has been in hospital quite unwell, twice recently. The last episode we needed to call an ambulance for his respiratory distress in the middle of the night.

He is a happy little soul, very complient with all the medical treatments he has required to date, and he has a great big personality that everyone he meets loves. Unfortunately his future is likely to be a rollercoaster ride of varying degrees of pain and medications/injections, but I am sure he will take it all in his stride and grow up to be a very strong person mentally. We as a family ride this rollercoaster with him each day, don't plan too far ahead, and try to take each day as it comes. A trip to the zoo which for most families takes one day, might take us 4 or 5 days. So we cherish the moments and the simple things in life.