Finally an answer!

Ok, so some of you already know that I(Jenn) have not been in very good health for the past few years. I was diagnosed with diabetes, was doing well, but would get ill often and suffered from bouts of  chronic fatigue. At the time we were placed with Jordan, I was doing great, then I developed severely painful arthritis in my hands and wrists. I was in the middle of seeing specialists to address that when I herniated and ruptured a lumbar disc requiring back surgery and a month spent mostly in bed. 

The back episode may have been a blessing in disguise. The MRI revealed that I have arthritis damage in most of my back and neck. Further imaging diagnostics revealed damage in my hands, knees, ankles, and sacroilliac joint(where hips connect to sacrum). It turns out that I have an autoimmune arthritis disease, a spondyloarthropathy. It is much like Rheumatoid Arthritis, but affects my back, knees, ankles, etc- more joints. The joint damage my father has is most likely related to the same condition(it is genetic). I am now on immuno-suppression therapy to quiet my immune system so it stops attacking my own body and hopefully halts the progression of joint damage.

We've not been very open about just how sick I have been. We had to hide it from social workers at first due to the looming threat from the Indian tribe(we didn't want to give them any more reason to remove Jordan if his birth-father did come forward and paternity test), but now that is no longer an issue. It's been a hard six months or so and we're hopeful that this new therapy will work within a month or two and I'll be back to my busy, crazy, healthy self.