FAIRBANKS — Josey Tomlinson doesn’t look like someone who could be a representative of the fight against arthritis.

But the story of the 14-year-old North Pole High School freshman demonstrates that arthritis, which has more than 100 varieties, afflicts people of all ages.

Tomlinson, the daughter of Army Staff Sgt. Mike Tomlinson and Sandra Tomlinson, was diagnosed last winter with Juvenile Idiopathic Arthritis.

Within a span of two months, she found herself in a wheelchair, lacking the strength to lift the blankets on her bed. She was sent to Seattle Children’s Hospital where a team of doctors and nurses pinpointed the problem.

She said they “gave me back my life” and that she will always to grateful to them.

After her condition was understood, Tomlinson went on medication and the pain in her joints diminished enough that she was soon able to run and jump again.

She said that the experience has helped her set a new goal for her life, to go to medical school and become a pediatric rheumatologist.

“I believe I am perfect for this job because I have a personal understanding of what it is like and how it feels to live with JIA,” she said.

Tomlinson also wants to help publicize the actions of the Arthritis Foundation, which opened a branch in Alaska in April 2009 in Anchorage.

Laura Goss, the branch manager of the foundation, said that because there are no rheumatologists in the Fairbanks area, it is a priority to hold education seminars here.

There are five arthritis specialists in Anchorage, three of them in private practice and two at the Alaska Native Medical Center.

Goss said that since many patients end up traveling Outside, the Arthritis Foundation wants to provide more resources and education for people in the Fairbanks area.

The foundation has two events this week, a forum this evening at the Noel Wien Library, and the second annual Arthritis Walk, set for Saturday at Pioneer Park at 10 a.m.

The forum today on “Understanding Arthritis: How You Can Make a Difference,” will be led by Karen Huisinga, a rheumatology nurse practitioner from Seattle.

The forum is free and open to the public. It starts at 6 p.m. with registration, resource information and refreshments. Huisinga’s program will begin at 6:30.

She intends to talk about the most common questions about arthritis, risk factors, symptoms, medical options and how to live with the condition.

Successfully living with arthritis is the theme of the walk Saturday.

Registration for the walk will be at 10 a.m. in the Pioneer Park parking lot, with the walk starting at 10:30. There will be a one-mile course and a three-mile option, for those who want to cover more ground.

Tomlinson will be the honored guest at the walk Saturday.

The purpose of the walk is to raise funds and awareness of ways to fight arthritis.

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ALASKA FABLE: One of the new dramas on NBC this fall, “The Event,” is a mystery that deals in part with a secret prison in Alaska dating from the end of World War II and the world’s greatest conspiracy. “Mount Inostranka” is supposed to be in the “Alaskan mountains” and run by the CIA, without the knowledge of the president.

This show is fiction. It will probably add to the spread of the false Internet reports, which have been propagated for years, that there is a secret government concentration camp, “a massive mental health facility,” capable of holding 2 million people, just outside of Fairbanks.

Dermot Cole can be reached at cole@newsminer.com or

459-7530.