Her parents, Los Gatos residents Kelley and Jeff Fredericks, watched their daughter deteriorate. Within two or three days, she could not walk and was clearly in agony.

"She would be laying on the couch screaming for hours and hours each day," Kelley Fredericks said. "My husband and I wondered if she could die just from the pain."

They got an appointment at Stanford Hospital on Dec. 26, and after a six-week process of elimination, learned the little girl had juvenile rheumatoid arthritis.

"Her doctor, in 27 years of practicing medicine, had never seen this before," Fredericks said.

The disease is not entirely uncommon among young people. According to the nonprofit Arthritis Foundation, about 30,000 to 50,000 children in the United States have some form of rheumatoid arthritis. Lindsey is among the 10 percent with a form called "systemic onset"—affecting much of the body rather than just joints.

Lindsey's initial treatments were intense, her mother said. For the first year and a half, she took medicine six times a day, including steroids that stalled her growth. Now, she takes fewer medications and Fredericks administers an injection every other day to help keep her relatively free of pain.

"We're working toward remission, but you have to be really conservative with [taking her off of] medication," she said. "She'll have a couple of days, maybe one or two a week, where she's in pain, but she's able to function as a normal 5-year-old."

Lindsey was recently honored at the first San Jose Arthritis Walk, held May 21 at St. James Park. About 300 people participated in the walk, which Fredericks said helped educate people about juvenile rheumatoid arthritis. Though it is more common than more "visible" children's diseases, juvenile arthritis research has received a fraction of the funding the others have. Fredericks now volunteers with the Arthritis Foundation with the goal of educating people about the condition's prevalence among children.

"The first step is raising awareness so more people understand how common it is and we can be properly represented," Fredericks said. "They're very close to finding a cure, but it's because of no help from the federal government."

On a more personal level, she said the walk was a great experience for her daughter.

"For the first time, she saw something positive come out of this," Fredericks said. "She felt like a movie star."

Some of Lindsey's friends from a play group even held a lemonade and popcorn sale in an Almaden Valley neighborhood before the walk, raising $193 that was donated to the Arthritis Foundation.

Lindsey has big plans, though. Inspired by her Stanford physician, Dr. Peter Chira (whom she refers to as "Dr. Peter Pancake"), she said she plans to enter the medical field.

"I want to be a doctor who helps kids with arthritis," she said.

For more information about juvenile arthritis, visit the Arthritis Foundation's website at www.arthritis.org.