What comes to mind with the word, “arthritis?” For most people, it’s probably the sight of fully grown adults rubbing their joints and swallowing some ibuprofen pills.
It’s most common among older people, but that doesn’t mean that kids are safe. Just ask Plant City High student Samantha Black. For her, dealing with juvenile arthritis is one thing; Playing big roles in two high school sports while dealing with it is an entirely different ballgame.
Black is the captain for both the flag football and cheerleading teams and has been going strong for the past four years in spite of her juvenile arthritis, which was initially undiagnosed for two years.
THE ONSET
After playing soccer through the end of middle school, Black entered her freshman year at Plant City High with a desire to try something new. She gave up soccer to try cheerleading because of the conflicting season schedules. She also decided to take up flag football for the sake of playing a spring sport.
She made it through cheer season with no problems, but flag football season wasn’t as forgiving.
“I really started feeling the symptoms my ninth-grade year, in flag football, and I thought I just had tennis elbow,” Black says.
Unlike a real case of tennis elbow, this one wasn’t going away so easily. And, of course, it began to spread to other parts of her body as time went on.
“It did start in my elbow, and it was huge,” Black says. “Then, I noticed my knees, my ankles, my wrists, everything hurts. I didn’t know if it was from tumbling.”
Black often had to get her elbow drained, because the condition greatly impacted her range of motion. She says that she could only open it to just over a 100-degree angle.
“Trying to get flags, and everything like that, it felt impossible,” she says. “I told my mom, ‘I don’t know if I can do this. Is this normal?’”
It clearly wasn’t, but the only thing that may have been harder than playing through the pain was finding a doctor who could diagnose the condition. According to her father, Chris Black, that was a longer process than the family thought it would be.
KEEPING ON
Of course, Black wasn’t content to just sit on the couch and mope while waiting for the right doctor to come through.
She continued to play both sports, putting in hard work over the summer and seeing it all pay off in her sophomore year. Cheer season went well, but flag football went even better. Black’s play and attitude on the gridiron earned her a captaincy role, which she maintains to this day.
“Her leadership is truly special,” head coach Greg Meyer says. “Her athleticism and agility matches with any of our male athletes. She is a clutch, big-time player who coaches go to in key situations and has been that type of athlete since 10th grade.”
Playing sports was a welcome distraction for Black and her family, who still weren’t sure what the problem was. Just being on the field helped push the uncertainty to the back of her mind, and seeing herself making progress in each sport was even better.
“I’ve learned to deal with it,” Black says. “I hurt all the time, but I love cheerleading and flag football.”
In her junior year, the family finally got the answers it had been looking for. Black was diagnosed with juvenile arthritis and put on a treatment plan that goes a little bit beyond muscle creams and ibuprofen: weekly medicine injections into the stomach.
That, she says, might be worse than playing flag football with a swollen elbow.
“I sometimes pass out,” Black says. “Not every time, but I’m not good with shots. He (Chris) hates going with me because I’m usually on the floor, white.”
On the plus side, they seem to be working.
“Now that I’m getting my shots, my elbow doesn’t swell up anymore,” she says. “I’m really seeing improvement.”
That also includes improvement on the playing fields. She continued to perform well in cheer season, earning a captaincy role, and she got even better on the gridiron. Last year, Black led the Lady Raiders in touchdowns scored, picks and all receiving categories. She was also the team’s only two-way starter, taking the field on offense and defense.
“She was the epitome of what you expect from your captain in any sport,” Meyer says.
THE PROGNOSIS
Luckily for Black, there are a few big milestones coming up in her near future.
Most importantly, juvenile arthritis is not a permanent condition, and at 17 she’s approaching the age where she’s expected to grow out of it. In at least six months, or at most one year, she should be off of those stomach shots for good.
Also, as a senior, she’s weighing her college prospects. Black wants to become a veterinarian and plans to transfer to the University of Florida or the University of South Florida to get her degree after a couple of years at Hillsborough Community College. She plans to keep playing flag football in college, as long as there’s a team for her to join.
She still has just over a semester of high school sports left to go, but she’s already given her family a career to be proud of.
“She had to play through it, and that was hard,” Chris says. “It was something that she dealt with, and that’s something I’m very proud of.”
Contact Justin Kline at jkline@plantcityobserver.com.
ABOUT JA
Juvenile arthritis is a disease that, while treatable, is something of a mystery to doctors. An idiopathic condition, JA can strike in children 16 or younger for no apparent reason other than something that may or may not be in the child’s genetic makeup. Generally speaking, one of the most tell-tale signs of the condition is if a child has at least one swollen joint that doesn’t completely heal after six weeks.
For more about JA, visit the Arthritis Foundation’s website at arthritis.org.