The seven-year-old girl, newly diagnosed with juvenile idiopathic arthritis, proudly showed off her new backpack on the weekend and read from her storybook about a child with the same disease she has.

The teddy bear contains a gel pack for warming or cooling sore joints.

Venus Williams announced her withdrawal from the U.S. Open yesterday, citing her recent diagnosis with Sjogren's syndrome, an autoimmune disease that occurs when the immune system attacks the body's own moisture-producing glands.

"I enjoyed playing my first match here, and wish I could continue but right now I am unable to," Williams said in a statement, reported by the Associated Press. "I am thankful I finally have a diagnosis and am now focused on getting better and returning to the court soon."

Video of French Impressionist painter, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, painting and smoking, a few years before his death. During this period, Renoir worked in constant pain due to severe rheumatoid arthritis, a condition that left him unable to walk, with a permanently clenched hand, and near-paralyzed. When asked by Henri Matisse why he kept painting, Renoir replied, "The pain passes, but the beauty remains."

An Overview of Arthritis Research with John Hardin, MD
Arthritis Foundation Vice President of Research

You’ve headed the organization’s research program since 2006, but your relationship with the Arthritis Foundation goes back much longer than that.

"Oh yes. Before I came to work here, the Arthritis Foundation had supported me through my whole career. My first fellowship in Boston came as a result of an Arthritis Foundation postdoctoral fellowship grant in the mid-1970s. Subsequently, I got another grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), which brought me to join the faculty at the Yale School of Medicine in 1976. When I got to Yale, I was awarded another fellowship by the Arthritis Foundation, which helped establish my career.

After suffering years of pain in her feet and legs and undergoing numerous operations between the ages of 18 and 23, Charlotte was finally diagnosed with the psoriatic form of arthritis last spring.

Work as a chef was Charlotte Bamford’s world and what got her out of bed in the mornings.

But when the 25-year-old was hit by crippling arthritis, she was forced to consider abandoning her dreams and find a new future.

Gabi Rojas grew up in the circus, traveling through cities in the US, making friends wherever she went. When her mother changed jobs from being a trapeze artist to a dance instructor in Albuquerque, New Mexico, Gabi went from tumbling to dancing and found her happiness in expressing her thoughts and feelings through movement to music. She became known as The Dancer in school and appeared in talent shows. Until the pain started. Until she was diagnosed with Juvenile Arthritis. Until at 13, she had her first full-blown flare and stopped dancing, stopped walking.

Gabi's JA started small with pain in her fingers, then it got bigger and added pain in her shoulders, elbows and wrists and at 13, she began to "really understand the nature of my disease" when consumed by a bad flare. "There were times where I couldn't walk, I needed help with brushing my hair and I had trouble sleeping. My mother heated blankets throughout the night to help my joints because they were so stiff." During this time, Gabi tried a lot of different medications that either didn't work or give her bad side effects, like losing her hair.