Hello world!

My name is LJ. I'm 21 years old and I live in a world ruled by Juvenile Rheumatoid Arthritis. I hate using the saying "ruled by" but I have to admit it's the truth. Ever since I was diagnosed in 1996 I fought against the disease. I fought to be "normal". Now I don't fight so much to be normal as I do to be independent. Being independent is not easy to do with a disease like mine. For those of you that do not know about JRA it is rare and can be very destructive to the body. If the disease don't cause damage the medicine one might take, will over the years.
It has been 12 years now since this ugly disease showed its face. I have overcame deep depression, using a wheelchair for 4 years to get around, fevers higher than 102.5 degrees, 2 or 3 blood transfusions where one I had a terrible reaction to, and manage to graduate high school in the top 10% of my class. It seems like so much and it feels like nothing at all. Today, I have nothing to show for it. I have not been able to work since I was 19 years old, now leaving me to live off of Social Security. How a ill 21 year old college student with bills and credit cards lives off of $459 a month is beyond me. Some how I get through it. A blog on ssi and that bull crap will come later!
The point of this blog is to give me a place to vent but to hopefully help and meet other like me that are suffering with a disease. I would love to meet everyone and anyone! So again HI WORLD!!!