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Arthritis Foundation honors Burbank teen whose life has changed because of the disease

Nate French, 14, in his home in Burbank. He is the 2017 Arthritis Foundation youth honoree, who, at age 14, was diagnosed with several types of arthritic illnesses. The 2017 Jingle Bell Run will be held in Glendale on Dec. 10.
(Tim Berger / Staff Photographer)
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For the past three years, Nathan French has been dealing with several types of arthritic illnesses — stiffness in his joints and muscles all over his body, rashes caused by sensitivity to the sun and systemic scleroderma, in which a waxy hardening has started to occur on his skin and in his intestinal tract.

Wendy French, Nathan’s mother, said his condition is called mixed-connective-tissue disease, but Nathan, 14, likes to call it “Nathanitis.” Whatever it is called, Wendy French said her son has been able to roll with the punches and make the most of everything.

“Nate does a really great job of balancing his life and letting his disease just be a part of his story but not define him,” Wendy French said on Thursday. “He’s a really positive person.”

Because Nathan has faced so many issues, including adjusting to being home-schooled, placing all the sports he likes to play on the back burner and dealing with his medications and doctors’ visits on a frequent basis, the Arthritis Foundation will honor Nathan during the organization’s Jingle Bell Run 5K fundraiser at Glendale Central Park on Sunday.

Nathan will give a speech during the event about what he’s had to battle and how he overcomes the unexpected changes in his life. However, he was initially uncertain as to why the foundation chose to honor him.

“I really haven’t done something like this before, and it’s new for me, but the more I learned about it, the more I got into it,” Nathan said.

He added that he wants people to recognize and understand that arthritis and its various forms can happen to anyone, including children like him.

“One in every 300,000 children suffer from arthritis,” Nathan said.

The teen started noticing that something was not right about four years ago. After coming back from watching the Los Angeles Dodgers during spring training, he noticed that he was having trouble getting in and out of vehicles, and he was breaking out in rashes.

Nathan also started to see his athletic performance begin to slip. He couldn’t swing a bat as fast as he used to, throw a baseball as quickly or kick a soccer ball as hard without his body hurting.

After about a year of testing, doctors finally diagnosed that he had mixed-connective-tissue disease. Wendy French said she had to pull her son out of John Muir Middle School and enroll him in Burbank Unified’s Independent Learning Academy, in which he is home-schooled.

Because the medications he takes make him nauseous and sleepy, Nathan has had to stop playing all the sports he loves.

Nathan said it has been difficult for him to be social with his friends because of his medication schedule and constant fatigue.

“I miss going to school,” Nathan said. “I hate the school part, but I loved the socializing and seeing my friends. I can’t really do that anymore, and it’s really impacted me emotionally.”

It has also been tough for Wendy French and her husband, Ross French, to see Nathan, whom they adopted when he was an infant, have to change his life.

Wendy French said that since both she and her husband were a bit nerdy, they wanted to adopt a child who had some potential athletic capabilities. Nathan’s birth family had an extensive athletic lineage. She said they were lucky to adopt Nathan, who was naturally into and good at sports. However, it has been difficult for them to see their son have to retire from sports at such a young age.

“We’re hoping to come out of retirement,” Wendy French said. “That’s the goal.”

Aside from hoping doctors find a cure for arthritis, Nathan said he hopes to become a U.S. Navy SEAL someday to help give back to others.

“I feel like that would help build me up, so that I can help other people,” he said. “A lot of people have helped me, so it would mean so much if I could help back.”

The Jingle Bell Run will begin at 7 a.m. Sunday at Glendale Central Park, 201 E. Colorado St.

anthonyclark.carpio@latimes.com

Twitter: @acocarpio

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