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tomeandflickcorner · 6 years

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Caravan of Courage: An Ewok Adventure

I’m actually approaching these next two reviews with a sense of trepidation. While I remember loving the Ewok movies as a kid, it’s been years since I last saw them. I think the last time I watched them prior to this moment was in the early 90s when they’d air on television. So I have absolutely no idea how they’re going to hold up now, or how they’ll come across to my adult brain. Before I begin, I am aware that the Wiki page states this movie is supposed to take place before Return of the Jedi. But something happens in the movie that makes me feel as if it makes more sense for the events in this film to have occurred after Return of the Jedi rather than before. I’ll explain what I mean when we get to the scene in question.

The movie begins with a prologue of sorts, with a mother and father searching for their missing children. Throughout the movie, it becomes apparent that this family of four, the Towani family, were traveling somewhere in their star cruiser, but something went wrong and they crash landed on the moon of Endor. Because they didn’t know where they were, they could hardly send a transmission for help, so they were pretty much stuck there until they could get the ship repaired. But on the night the movie opens, the two children, 14-year-old Mace and 5-year-old Cindel, have apparently wandered off, despite their parents’ instructions to stay near the star cruiser. While the parents, Catarine and Jeremitt, are out looking for them, they are ambushed by a giant troll-like being called the Gorax. The Gorax ends up capturing Catarine and Jeremitt for reasons that are not made clear. Did the Gorax plan on eating them? Did he just want to keep them as human pets? It’s never really addressed.

But anyway, the movie then cuts to the star players of the movie- the Ewoks. Specifically Wicket and his family, which consists of his father, Deej, his mother, Shoudu, his two older brothers, Weechee and Widdle, and his baby sister, Winda. (Incidentally, you might recognize Widdle as one of the two Ewoks who hijacked the Walker with Chewbacca during the Battle of Endor in Return of the Jedi.) On this day, Weechee and Widdle have also gone missing. So Deej decides to go off looking for them, utilizing a hang glider to search the forest.

So, remember how one of the biggest issues with The Star Wars Holiday Special (not the only issue, but one of the biggest) was the fact that they were mostly focusing on a family of Wookiees and didn’t give us any subtitles, expecting us to just figure out what was happening on our own? Well, in this TV movie, they did learn their lesson. Sort of. While they don’t give us subtitles in this one, either, we did get a narrator. Yeah, they got Burl Ives, who you might remember from the Rankin Bass version of Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer (among other things), to narrate this movie. Unfortunately, this really doesn’t work to the movie’s advantage. There are times when it feels as if the Narrator is talking down to the audience. And at first, the use of a narrator makes the movie seem more like a nature documentary on Ewoks rather than a plot-driven movie.

Deej eventually locates his wayward sons. They were apparently climbing a rocky cliff but got stuck halfway up. After Deej helps them get out of their predicament, the three Ewoks start making their way back to their village. But first, they have to make a detour. While he was gliding over the forest on his hang glider, Deej saw something glittering in the sunlight through the forest canopy, so he decides to take his sons with him to investigate what it was. And that’s how they discover the crashed star cruiser. They step inside to investigate their discovery, and thus end up finding Cindel hiding behind a panel. Not sure if we’re supposed to conclude she made it back to the star cruiser after her parents ran into the Gorax or if she’d been there all along and the parents just didn’t look hard enough. Either way, Cindel, being 5-years-old, instantly decides the Ewoks are friends based on how cute they were. Her brother, Mace, on the other hand, is less trusting of the little teddy bear Aliens. Instead, he charges in and aims his blaster at them, stating that they might be the beings who took their parents. I’m guessing it’s been a few days since the events of the movie prologue. Eventually, the Ewoks take the two kids back with them to their village. Though they take Mace back by tying him up and carrying him. Rather similar to how they initially treated Han, Luke, Chewbacca and R2 in Return of the Jedi. The Ewoks must really not like human males. That, or they just don’t like the hostile ones.

Now, I gotta pause to talk about the two kids. There’s no sense in denying that neither of these two give a good performance, even by child actor standards. In fact, with the kid who plays Cindel, Aubree Miller, this was her first acting role. And believe me, it shows. But I can forgive her for that because, again, she’s only 5-years-old. Mace, on the other hand? I don’t think he’s even trying sometimes. There are some points in his performance when he seems to think all you need to do to convey emotion is to shout your lines. Also, I sometimes get the feeling that the movie was trying to make Mace a discount Luke Skywalker. Sure, he shows no indication of being Force Sensitive, but his costume throughout the movie bears a strong resemblance to Luke’s X-Wing pilot outfit. Even his haircut seems similar to Luke’s.

When they get back to the Ewok Village, it soon becomes apparent that Cindel is sick with a fever. Fortunately, Deej and his wife, Shoudu, are able to give Cindel some medicine that helps her, but when Cindel is still ill in the morning, they have to go out and gather more medicine for her. To get the key ingredient for the medicine, they have to travel to this tree in the middle of the forest. Because this specific tree emits a special kind of fluid that the Ewoks have used to treat their ailments for eons. (I wonder if this is the Tree of Life they mentioned in The Star Wars Holiday Special.)

It’s at this point where we first start to see how much of a dingbat Mace is. While the Ewoks are harvesting the tree’s curative sap for Cindel’s medicine, Mace spots a large hole in a nearby hollow tree. And there appears to be some kind of cute little fuzzy critter inside this hole. For some reason, Mace decides to go over and stick his hand into the hole in order to get this critter. Yes, I know Mace is supposed to be 14 in this movie, but at the same time, he’s presumably grown up in the Star Wars universe. You’d think he’d know better than to go about touching random fauna like this. The moment he reaches inside, a larger creature ends up biting down, latching onto his hand. Apparently this creature is a predatory animal called a Temptor. The fuzzy creature Mace saw was part of the creature’s tongue. I guess this creature is a bit like an alligator snapping turtle, in the sense that it lures prey to come closer with their tongue. So the Ewoks have to drop what they’re doing to come to his rescue.

Despite Mace’s stupidity, the Ewoks are able to gather up enough tree fluid to manufacture more medicine for Cindel. The following morning, the medicine seems to have done the trick, as Cindel is feeling all better. And right away, she develops an instant friendship with Wicket, possibly because they’re supposedly around the same age.

Also, it’s here that I noticed something a bit off-putting about the movie. This is supposed to take place in the Star Wars universe, in a galaxy far, far away. So can someone please explain to me how the Ewoks share their home with animals commonly seen on Earth? I’m not kidding, here. By this point in the movie, we’ve seen the Ewoks have ponies, goats, rabbits and ferrets. Is this movie is suggesting that those particular species are actually native to the moon of Endor and somehow ended up on Earth as an invasive species? I mean, the events of the Star Wars films are supposed to have happened a long, long time ago. So maybe, by the time then became now, the native people of the Star Wars universe somehow found their way here to the Milky Way and ended up colonizing Earth, bringing with them an assortment of critters that we now associate with our planet. I guess that’s as good of an explanation as any.

Anyway, Cindel starts trying to communicate with Wicket about how they ended up on the moon of Endor, explaining how their star cruiser crashed. Out of nowhere, Wicket starts repeating Cindel’s statements in comprehensible English. Or Basic, to use the Star Wars terminology. Yep, this movie shows Wicket starting to develop the ability to speak Basic. By the time the sequel, The Battle for Endor, comes along, he is able to speak Basic fluently. And that is why I take issue with this movie supposedly taking place before Return of the Jedi and therefore think it makes more sense to set this movie after the Original Trilogy ends. Because if this did take place before Episode 6, then there is no reason why Wicket wouldn’t have been able to actually engage in a conversation with Leia. Or why the other Ewoks seemed to be so hostile to Luke and Han upon seeing them. If they’d already met Mace and Cindel by that point, then they must have noticed the fact that Han, Luke and Leia were from the same species.

Because of her newfound friendship with Wicket, Cindel suggests to Mace that the Ewoks could help them find their parents. Mace, however, isn’t convinced, dismissing the Ewoks as animals. Which is weird, because he must have realized by this point that the Ewoks are sentient beings. And, being from the Star Wars universe, he should be at least somewhat familiar with non-humanoid Aliens. Regardless, Mace decides to take Cindel and sneak away in the middle of the night so they could continue the search for their parents. Which was really stupid on his part. Once again, they’re on a planetary moon they’re not familiar with and therefore don’t know what nocturnal fauna there might be. But that’s what Mace decides to do.

After traveling for a bit, Cindel insists that they’re lost and she can’t walk any further, so Mace sets up camp, building a campfire to keep warm. As they’re sitting around, they start to discuss their parents, and whether or not they’re dead. Mace then starts to confide in Cindel how he wishes he’d been a better son. I guess the implication is that Mace sometimes misbehaved. And it’s possible that this is basically him saying that he shouldn’t have wandered off the night Jeremitt and Catarine went missing.

At that moment, this wolf-boar creature suddenly appears and starts to chase the two kids, forcing them to take refuge inside a hollow tree for the night. When morning comes, we see the Ewok family had managed to track them down, as they are trying to fight off the wolf-boar. And there’s no denying the stop-motion effect they used with the wolf-boar did not stand up against the test of time, as it looks really dated. Nowhere near as good as the Rancor. Yes, I know this movie was made on a considerably smaller budget, but even so. Eventually, the wolf-boar is brought down by a well-aimed poison dart from Wicket. And, when they get a close look at the dead wolf-boar, they see he’s wearing a collar. Meaning he belonged to someone. But what really catches Mace and Cindel’s attention is the fact that their father’s Life Monitor is stuck to the collar. Life Monitors, from what I gather, are a type of bracelet that you can wear, which is used by groups of people to keep track on the life status of everyone else wearing the bracelet. Since Jeremitt’s Life Monitor states he’s alive, the children have a renewed hope that they’ll find their mother and father.

But before they can hope to reunite with their parents, Mace and Cindel have to figure out where the wolf-boar came from. Because knowing that would most likely help determine where the parents are. To help Mace and Cindel, the Ewok family take them to Logray, the village shaman, in the hopes that he could help determine the parents’ location. Thankfully, Logray can help them. Because he has some kind of magical spinning top thing that can enable you to observe things in other locations. That’s right, magic now exists in the Star Wars universe. Even though it’s never mentioned at any other point in the Star Wars media. Though I guess it’s possible what the Ewoks call magic is actually the Force. Does this mean Ewoks can be Force Sensitive, too? Anyway, Logrey’s magic top helps them learn that the missing parents are prisoners of the Gorax. Upon seeing the danger her parents are in, Cindel begs Deej to help them rescue them. After some hesitation, on account of the fact that the Gorax lives in a Forbidden Fortress that no Ewok has ever returned from, Deej ultimately decides to accompany Mace and Cindel on their quest to rescue their parents. And his three sons, Weechee, Widdle and Wicket also volunteer to go along.

Here, we do get a rather nicely acted scene, considering the actors are wearing Ewok costumes. During the night, we see Shodu mournfully looking around at her family while everyone is sleeping. It is clear that she is fearful about the safety of her family and is terrified that she might not see her husband or sons again. After all, the Gorax is suppoed to be very dangerous. Eventually, Deej wakes up to comfort her, even though he is probably equally as scared. I don’t know why, but there’s just something about this scene that I really appreciated.

When morning comes, we finally get to the whole caravan thing this movie’s title promised us, as Deej, Weechee, Widdle, Wicket, Mace and Cindel prepare to leave on their journey to the Gorax’s lair in order to rescue Mace and Cindel’s parents. And it only took four days in the show’s timeline for the actual plot to begin. Before they leave, Logrey performs some sacred Ewok ritual, in which each of the travelers are given a special totem. According to the Narrator, these totems were all once owned by the Legendary Ewok Warriors. (Shame we couldn’t get more clarification on who these Legendary Warriors were.) The first three totems are all basically feathered headdresses, with each one supposedly representing a different attribute. Deej gets the White Wings of Hope, Weechee, the oldest son, gets the Red Wings of Courage and Widdle gets the Blue Wings of Strength. The other totems have a bit more variety, however. For instance, Wicket is presented with a magical walking stick and Cindel receives a candle that’s called the Candle of Pure Light. As for Mace, his totem is a rock. But because Mace is a twat, he dismisses the rock as useless and purposely drops it as they leave Logrey’s hut. While I understand why he might not see the significance of a rock on this journey, it’s not as if Cindel’s candle or Wicket’s walking stick had an obvious significance at this point. And at least a rock is somewhat useful. What did Deej and the two oldest Ewok sons get? Feathered headdresses. While I’m sure they are ceremonially significant to the Ewok culture, they’re not going to be of much use in a fight with the Gorax. Anyway, the last two totems in the ceremony that Logrey performs are an ivory tooth and a crystal. Deej brings these last two totems with them in order to present them to two other Ewoks, in the hopes that they will join them on their quest. With the totems all gathered up, they all set off. Though, since Cindel and Wicket are the youngest ones there, they are allowed to ride in a special tent-like compartment strapped to a horse’s back.

The first Ewok the group end up seeking out is Chukha-Trok, who I gather is a renowned Ewok warrior who works as a woodcutter, considering how the movie introduces him. He ends up felling a tree that just narrowly misses Cindel. Which immediately puts Chukha-Trok on Mace’s bad side. So Mace isn’t pleased when Deej offers Chujha-Trok the Ivory Tooth, offering the Ewok woodcutter a place in their company. At first, however, Chukha-Trok doesn’t seem willing to go, until Mace starts insinuating that he’s not a real warrior. Which obviously is a huge insult to Chukha-Trok’s pride. This leads to Mace challenging Chukha-Trok to an ax-throwing contest. A contest that Chukha-Trok quickly wins. As a result, Mace begins to respect Chukha-Trok, and he asks him to help them find their parents. This time, Chukha-Trok decides to join the caravan. I do have to give Mace a bit of credit here, to be honest. While his transition from being dismissive of Chukha-Trok to respecting him as a brave warrior might have occurred a bit too quickly, this was obviously the movie’s attempt at giving him some character development.

Next, they visit Kaink, an Ewok Priestess and the only female apart from Cindel. Her totem is, of course, the Crystal. Kaink agrees to join, on one condition- the children have to pass some kind of magical test. But this test is not exactly clear. Kaink places the Crystal totem in Mace’s hands and it transforms into a lizard, which he drops in shock. Then, when Cindel picks the lizard up, it transforms into a mouse. Apparently, this is enough to convince Kaink to join the rescue mission. But it’s not clear what this magic test was. The crystal becomes a lizard and then the lizard turns into a mouse? So what? What was this supposed to convey? The all-knowing Narrator is completely silent on the matter, offering no explanation. So if anyone from the die-hard Star Wars fan base can offer any insight on what this was, I would love to hear it.

Of course, that’s not the only time the Narrator fails to explain things. At some point, the group stops to rest and Mace notices a nearby lake. For some reason, the sight of his reflection in the water makes him curious and he tries to touch the lake. The moment his finger makes contact with the surface of the lake, he’s instantly trapped beneath the water. When Cindel sees her brother is in trouble, she calls the other Ewoks to help. They try to extend a rope or a tree branch for Mace to grab so they could pull him out, but the rope and branch are also zapped into the lake the instant they touch the water. But Wicket has the magic Walking Stick he got from Logrey. Only that is able to successfully penetrate the surface of the water, enabling them to successfully pull Mace out. Like with the magic test Kaink performed, we’re not given any clarification on what this lake was, or why it trapped anyone and anything that came in contact with the surface of the lake beneath the water. It’s just something the movie included to add some tension. And to give Wicket’s Walking Stick some significance.

Speaking of scenes that only exist to provide tension, we then get a scene when the Ewoks are getting ready to continue on. Wicket is swinging around on a tree branch, but when he’s told the others are about to leave, he abruptly lets go, which ends up scaring the horse carrying Cindel, prompting the horse to bolt. So Chukha-Trok has to chase after the runaway horse and keep Cindel from getting hurt. Once that crisis is averted, they can continue on their way.

When night falls, the Ewoks end up setting up camp. Out of nowhere, there are a bunch of fairy like creatures flitting around. These creatures are apparently called Wisties, and I guess they were featured in the animated TV show, Ewoks, at some point, but since I only remember watching one episode of that show, I couldn’t say for certain. The Wisties end up catching the attention of Mace and the other Ewoks. Well, all except for Widdle, who steps outside his tent, looks around for a second and then decides to go back to bed. Needless to say, it’s at this point that I found myself really liking Widdle. Anyway, when Cindel comes out of her tent to see what’s going on, the Wisties start to flit around the Candle of Pure Light, which she just happened to be carrying at the time. Noticing their interest in the candle, Cindel places it on the ground, and the Wisties, I guess, get absorbed into the candle and merge into Izrina, the Queen of the Wisties. Once again, we get no explanation as to what just happened, but Queen Izrina ends up joining Mace, Cindel and the Ewoks on their quest.

At long last, after crossing the Desert of Salma (because there’s now a desert on this forest moon), they reach the mountains where the Gorax is supposed to live. But the entrance is hidden from view. That’s when Kaink gestures to Mace, pantomiming him to use the rock he got from Logray. Mace sheepishly admits he threw the rock away, much to Chukha-Trok’s exasperation. Fortunately, Wicket then reveals he’d picked up the rock after Mace dropped it. When Mace thankfully takes his rock back, he finds out that it’s actually hollow and that something is inside the rock. He throws it to the ground, revealing this arrowhead. The arrowhead, as if pulled by a magnet, slides across the ground and slips under a particular stone on the base of the mountain. Which indicates that this is where the entrance is. Mace ends up using his blaster to blow up the stone blocking the entrance. Okay, who gave this 14-year-old kid a blaster so powerful, it can blow up a stone? And if they had blasters with this much capability, why didn’t they ever utilize it during the Original Trilogy?

So they enter the cave, and it’s decided that Widdle, Wicket and Cindel should hang back, on account of them being the youngest members of the caravan. Widdle in particular isn’t happy about being left behind, but he still abides by the group’s decision. As such, Deej, Weechee, Chukha-Trok, Kaink and Mace continue on while Widdle and Wicket keep Cindel company.

Deej’s group soon come to this seemingly bottomless chasm. Taking note of what is so obviously a spider web stretching across the crevasse, Mace decides to use the web as a bridge, and they start to cross. But as they neglected to observe, where there’s a spider web, there’s most likely a spider. Sure enough, a spider attacks them. Mace strikes back at the spider with a knife, and the spider falls into the abyss. But as Mace and the Ewoks are crossing the divide on the spider web, another spider appears and stars to attack Deej. This time, it’s Kaink who comes to the rescue, as she uses her Crystal totem to hypnotize the spider, resulting in that one to fall into the pit as well. Meanwhile, we see a third spider has found his way to where Cindel, Wicket and Widdle were waiting. This third spider is quickly dealt with thanks to Wicket and Widdle, though.

Eventually, Mace and the Ewoks find the lair of the Gorax, where they see the parents trapped in a cage suspended from the ceiling. But the Gorax is also there, currently eating something. Weechee, partially inadvertently, ends up luring the Gorax out of his lair, allowing the others the chance to free Catarine and Jeremitt. The rescue attempt involves using the Gorax’s ax as a catapult and providing the parents a rope to climb down on. But while the rescue is still being carried out, the Gorax, having lost interest in Weechee, returns. So everyone has to make a run for it. But Chukha-Trok stays behind to face the Gorax, repeatedly striking at the Gorax��s leg with his ax, despite Mace’s attempts at urging him away.

At that moment, Queen Izrina remembers she’s involved in the movie. She’s been hanging out in Mace’s pocket this whole time. At Mace’s request, she flies at the Gorax and disorients the giant by darting around his head. As the Gorax is flaying around, he ends up hitting the sides of his lair, causing a bunch of rocks to fall. Chukha-Trok ends up getting hit by the falling rocks, much to Mace’s shock and horror. Mace runs out to try and help the fallen Ewok, but Chukha-Trok was too gravely injured by the falling rocks and ends up dying in Mace’s arms. Before he dies, Chukha-Trok ends up giving his ax to Mace, which was probably meant to indicate that the two have come full-circle in their relationship and now consider each other as friends. Mace momentarily grieves his friend’s death, but, due in part to the sub-par acting, he gets over it relatively quickly, and he hurries off to rejoin the others.

Meanwhile, the Gorax is trying to go after the other Ewoks, but Catarine and Jeremitt and the Ewoks team up to create a makeshift trip-wire that they use against the Gorax. This almost results in the Gorax to fall into the bottomless pit, but he lands just short of the edge, so he doesn’t fall. It takes the combined efforts of Kaink, who uses her Crystal totem to drop a stalactite onto the Gorax’s head, and Catarine, wielding Mace’s blaster, before the Gorax falls into the crevice to his apparent death.

At this point, the movie seems to be wrapping up. Mace, rejoining the others at this moment, embraces his parents before showing Deej Chukha-Trok’s ax, explaining the warrior’s sacrifice. And then, Cindel appears on the other side of the chasm with Wicket and Widdle. And she’s overjoyed to see her parents safe, and vice versa. However, it turns out the Gorax still has a few hit points left, as he reappears at this point, trying to climb back out of the pit, right in front of Cindel. When the Gorax tries to grab Cindel, Mace jumps into action and throws Chukha-Trok’s ax at the Gorax. The ax lands home in the Gorax’s back, forcing him to fall into the abyss once again. This time, the Gorax is defeated for real. So Cindel is safe, and the Towani family can be properly reunited at last.

The Towani family then travels back the Ewok village with the Ewoks. After Mace bids goodbye to Queen Izrina, thanking her for her help, he rejoins the celebration going on. Because it’s not just the Towani family that’s been safely reunited, but the Ewok family as well. And because of the friendship between the two families, I guess, Deej gives the White Wings of Hope to Cindel. The movie ends with the Narrator delivering one of the cheesiest closing lines ever. About how the movie’s protagonists all learned what they already knew- that courage, loyalty and love were the strongest forces in the universe.

So that was the first Ewok movie. While I can see why I liked it as a kid, now that I’m an adult, I realize that a lot of this movie didn’t make a lot of sense. Obviously, Kid Me was a lot more accepting of stuff. Not only that, it dawned on me how this movie might actually be seen as boring. For the most part, it’s just these two kids interacting and walking around with some Ewoks. In fact, I think it’s safe to say that if you threw Lord of the Rings and Care Bears into a blender and mixed them together, this is pretty much what you’d end up with. But at the same time, this movie is clearly meant for kids. And it must have kept enough kids entertained back in the 80s, because a sequel was released the following year. Check back next week for my review on that one.

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mortallyshytrash-blog · 7 years

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Challenges.

What do you do when faced with a challenge? Do you run and hide? Face it head on? Do you pretend that it’s not even there? These are all plausible solutions, and depending on who you are as a person or what’s going on, you’re likely to do one or all of these things daily or weekly. Take, for example, a scene out of almost any movie or book about high school in which the main character is a small, nerdy freshman who is targeted by the buff bully of the eleventh grade. The bully will taunt the small boy while literally and figuratively pummeling him into the ground for months, maybe even years, until one day, that smaller boy will snap. He’ll fight back, and he’ll probably get his butt kicked into next week. Or maybe, the bully will sneer at him and invite him to meet in the parking lot after school where a real showdown can be had. The outmatched boy, having realized that he’s backed himself into a corner, will have no choice but to agree to the meeting with false confidence, as though his heart isn’t already trying to pound itself out of his chest. Once the bully is gone, however, he will be faced with the choice of whether to honor his commitment or not. If he goes, he knows he will likely be beaten and humiliated in front of his classmates, none of whom will come to his aid. He could leave school early and avoid the entire situation, but at what cost? Is his reputation worth it? What if the bully decides to track him down and beats him up at home, in front of his family? The possibilities surrounding this fairly generic scenario are endless. One could quite literally branch this into an entire novel, and then another author could come along and branch it into an entirely different novel without breaking any copyright laws. The challenge faced here by the small boy could be reacted to in many ways, as is the same with most trials that we face. Others, however, are seemingly simpler and much more nefarious. But what if there are only two options to your challenge? What if you can either face it or ignore it? Here is where we break away from the generics and hypothetical situations, because this is where I begin to tell my story. In my story, I am the small freshman. And my bully? My bully is a disease that will affect me and cause me pain for the rest of my life. Now, before I get too far into the logistics and the past few weeks of my life, I need to add in a disclaimer: at this time, I do not (that I know of) have this disease as I am waiting on test results. Throughout my eighteen years on this earth, my dad has been one of the most important people in my life, and he has retained that special position in my heart despite his passing away almost three years ago. I’ve always been a “daddy’s girl.” He and I are alike in our mannerisms and our countenance. We speak the same and we look the same. That is, we look the same except he always had these golf ball sized growths on his wrists. To a stranger, these were probably very alarming to see, but to me, these huge growths were just one more thing that made my dad special, even though I knew they caused him pain and were the result of his severe rheumatoid arthritis. When I was young, he would check my fingers and wrists almost weekly to be sure I didn’t show signs of these growths. He pushed for me to be tested for the disease when I was five or six, but most doctors are skeptical about testing such a young child, especially when RA tests aren’t always accurate because each RA patient is different and not all of them (us?) show the same results. I was denied the test. When I was about thirteen, we went to another doctor who again told us that we probably wouldn’t get a for sure answer from a blood test, so we went back home and continued on with our lives. Why worry about something that isn’t here yet? As I said before, I’m eighteen years old. In high school, I kept myself active, participating in two sports each my freshman, sophomore, and junior years. Because of a shoulder injury, I had to get surgery which was supposed to cause me to miss one of my two sports, and then, as a result of a minor complication with either the surgery or my recovery, I ended up not being able to do my other one either. I substituted the time I used to spend at practice with working my job at the coffee shop and spent the rest of my time reading, studying, hanging out with friends, or preparing for college. Normal teenage stuff. I assumed that everyone’s knees cracked when they stood up after kneeling. And everyone’s ankles get sore after sitting criss cross, don’t they? The stiffness and popping I experienced in my joints never bothered me because to me, that was normal; I never questioned it. Most people, if you were to ask them, would describe themselves and their behaviors as normal. The same is true of me. One day at work, I got out of my chair to take a customer’s order and felt such an intense pain in my right ankle that I could barely walk for the rest of the day. Not only that, but the entire side of my foot was swollen. I assumed that I had just rolled my ankle at some point recently, but I couldn’t recall exactly when it had happened. The other weird thing was the fact that I was experiencing swelling. My ankles generally have a bit of swelling around them anyways, but my ankles do not swell when I sprain or roll them (and yes, I do this often enough to know what is and is not normal for my body). These symptoms set off some small alarms in my head. So, I made an appointment and got to see the doctor only a few days later. When I got there, I expected much the same as what I had experienced with all of my previous doctors: “Sorry, we can’t test you until you show signs of joint damage.” Luckily, this doctor listened to my ailments and felt the need to do a blood test, which she felt would determine whether I actually have this disease right now or not. She informed me that she had worked with many RA patients before and felt that she had a firm grasp on how to begin treatment if my test came back positive and told me that I would have to be referred to a rheumatologist in order to keep my disease under control (again, if the results came back positive). To clarify, rheumatoid arthritis is when your own antibodies mistakenly attack your joints or organs (most commonly your joints). It can cause joint damage and disfiguration if left untreated or not detected early enough. Diagnosis is usually made after a blood test comes back with a positive for “rheumatoid factor” which about 80% of patients with RA have. Another thing that might show up in the test is elevated levels of citrulline, which will show up in less than 70% of patients, but there is not a test out there that will give a concrete yes or no. The diagnosis depends on the skill of your doctor and how progressed the disease is. My doctor listened to my ailments. She wasn’t too busy to see me and my potential disease. She heard my family history and made an informed decision based upon the fact that my father and brother both got the disease young, and it is three times more likely to occur in women than in men. She was worried by the fact that an eighteen year old girl who had led a sports and activity filled lifestyle had told her she had bad joints. Could this be a flare up? Or did I really just roll my ankle and worry myself into thinking that my joints were bothering me? The biggest question I will have if I am diagnosed when I go back to hear the lab results will be how much earlier could I have detected this? What if I had done more research or asked my dad more questions about his condition when I had the chance? Did cracking my knuckles when I’m nervous cause this? There’s really no way to be sure about the answer to any of these questions, which will be one of the most difficult things to process. If it’s positive, I’ll probably go home and have a good cry over a pint of ice cream and spend a few more days researching the disease. The truth is, I’m not sure what my diagnosis will be. I don’t know if the doctor will call me before I even go in and tell me I can cancel my appointment because I officially don’t have the disease and that she will see me again in a year when I have blood drawn again to test for the very same thing, which I will have to do annually until we can find something to definitively say yes or no. Maybe she’ll give me a hug before she tells me that my body is attacking itself, that damage has already been done and that I’ll need surgery in a few years to correct it. She might tell me that my medication will prevent me from drinking alcohol and that I shouldn’t go to parties when I go to college in the fall. When faced with the option of calling the doctor and ordering the test versus ignoring my pain and continuing on with my carefree lifestyle, I chose to face the music and make the call. So, I ask again. When faced with a challenge of this style, what do you do?

#rheumatoid arthritis #early detection #challenge #teenager #joint #pain #joint pain #doctor #health #lifestyle #disease #genetics #genetic disease #thanks dad #living with rheumatoid arthritis #waiting on results

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