Meet Carrie Ritchie!

Carrie is a member of the Cassie + Friends National Board of Directors and a parent of a child with Juvenile Idiopathic Arthritis. We caught up with Carrie to learn about her family’s journey with juvenile arthritis over the last 2 years. As a board member, Carrie looks forward to helping expand the community of Cassie + Friends and contributing in building a pain free future for her daughter and all children. Outside of the boardroom she enjoys golfing, travel and spending time with her family.

Where do you live? Where do you receive care?

We live in Etobicoke, a neighbourhood of Toronto. Our daughter, Elda, goes to The Hospital for Sick Children – or SickKids.

When was Elda first diagnosed?

Elda was just a couple months shy of her 3rd birthday when she was diagnosed, in April of 2020. The diagnosis, while scary, was a relief, as we had no idea what was going on.

How did COVID-19 impact your/Elda’s ability to get care?

Elda was first diagnosed right at the peak of uncertainty during the pandemic, but the team at SickKids made sure that Elda had the specialist consultations she needed, even if it was via FaceTime! We are very lucky to be located so close to such a health centre like SickKids. It really was amazing to see how fast they were able to provide us with answers and get Elda started with treatment.

What kind of treatment did Elda need for her arthritis?

Once she was diagnosed, she had one round of joint injection in her knees, and after that we have been just doing in-clinic visits at her Rheumatologists office. That is where I found out about Cassie + Friends and started engaging with the virtual learning seminars and learning more about the diverse needs of children with JIA and how we could give back to the larger JIA community!

How has arthritis impacted Elda and your family?

It’s hard to tell from the outside on most days that Elda has a condition at all, but everyone in our family takes it seriously and respects her physical boundaries when we partake in family activities. With her treatment she is on now, it seems to be working very well, and most of the time you wouldn’t even know that she was a kid with JIA!

How does Elda manage her arthritis at school?

At first, I was very uncomfortable leaving Elda in the hands of others at school, but Cassie + Friends has provided us with so many resources to engage her teachers and classmates about JIA, that it has not been nearly as scary as we originally thought. I know that her teachers and all of the staff at the school are aware of what JIA means for Elda, and how they can help her continue to have a fun and happy experience at school.

For Juvenile Arthritis Awareness Month, we have been reflecting on the incredible progress in JA treatment and outcomes over the last 15 years and sharing our dreams for what might be possible for kids #15YearsFromNow. What is your hope for kids impacted by arthritis in the future?

I hope that for kids with JIA and other rheumatic diseases, we can help provide the support needed to them and their families to understand the disease and keep advancing treatments to enable them to live a pain-free future! There is so much to understand about these diseases, and most parents are not physicians, so the community support from Cassie + Friends to translate all of the information out there has been invaluable to us.