Since Jovelle Don­ald­son was di­ag­nosed with ju­ve­nile rheuma­toid arthri­tis at age three, which caused all her joints to be­come in­flamed and swollen, she has over­come many chal­lenges such as years of ex­cru­ci­at­ing pain, be­ing in and out of hos­pi­tal, count­less doc­tors' ap­point­ments, surg­eries, phys­io­ther­a­py, and com­pli­ca­tions to grad­u­ate from The Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies (UWI), St Au­gus­tine with a MSc in Clin­i­cal Psy­chol­o­gy, last year.

She is now a clin­i­cal psy­chol­o­gist at UWI's Fam­i­ly De­vel­op­ment and Chil­dren's Re­search Cen­tre (FD­CRC), St John's Road, St Au­gus­tine.

Es­chew­ing the word "dis­abil­i­ty" as it lim­it­ed or re­duced what a per­son can do, Don­ald­son said she pre­ferred the term "dif­fer­ent­ly-abled".

Speak­ing to the Sun­day Guardian on Thurs­day at her of­fice, Don­ald­son, 27, said "I worked at the cen­tre for the last three years and start­ed as a re­search as­sis­tant. Now that I'm a clin­i­cal psy­chol­o­gist I help with re­search projects, learn­ing events, and work with so­cial work­ers do­ing coun­selling.

"At the chil­dren's cen­tre I look at how to im­prove ear­ly child­hood ed­u­ca­tion, the cur­rent cur­ricu­lum, then ob­serve the chil­dren in the class­room, what works or not and try to im­prove on that through re­search and pub­li­ca­tions."

Don­ald­son said while writ­ing an ex­am at UWI some­one ap­proached her to check out the Aca­d­e­m­ic Sup­port/Dis­abil­i­ties Li­ai­son Unit (AS­D­LU) which helps peo­ple who are dif­fer­ent­ly-abled like her­self.

She said AS­D­LU's di­rec­tor Jacque­line Hug­gins made im­prove­ments such as mak­ing the pave­ment and walk­ways more wheel­chair ac­ces­si­ble to the phys­i­cal­ly-chal­lenged and gave stu­dents as­sis­tance which was very pro­gres­sive of UWI.

Don­ald­son said she orig­i­nal­ly want­ed to be a doc­tor af­ter spend­ing so much time in hos­pi­tal among doc­tors and feel­ing so com­fort­able.

She said she re­alised that phys­i­cal med­i­cine was im­por­tant, but the com­po­nent of the emo­tion­al and psy­cho­log­i­cal as­pect was just as im­por­tant in her case.

Don­ald­son said her worst time en­dur­ing pain was at New­town Girls' Pri­ma­ry School and Holy Name Con­vent where she could not even walk and had to crawl on the ground to get around be­cause of the flare-ups in her joints.

She said she wore braces, casts, and used crutch­es at school, and doc­tors strong­ly ad­vised her par­ents be­cause of her con­di­tion to not at­tend school as it can be­come stress­ful.

Don­ald­son said she per­se­vered and still at­tend­ed school thanks to her par­ents, es­pe­cial­ly her moth­er, Par­ba­tee, who was a teacher.

She said Holy Name Con­vent's prin­ci­pal Ellen Lee Pow and vice-pres­i­dent Mrs Aqui were very ac­com­mo­dat­ing as well as the chil­dren who were help­ful and didn't make her feel any dif­fer­ent.

Don­ald­son said her con­di­tion al­so af­fect­ed her eyes and she al­so suf­fered from chron­ic uveitis, in­flam­ma­tion of the eyes.

She said her ail­ments were now in re­mis­sion, how­ev­er she still has rem­nants of her con­di­tion, the joint in her right knee and left el­bow were fused.

Don­ald­son said she still did Shinkyokushin karate, tried to keep ac­tive and was very grate­ful.

She said when she was younger she could not do as much phys­i­cal ac­tiv­i­ties but still par­tic­i­pat­ed in school hock­ey, swim­ming and "every­thing" rather than sit in a cor­ner and watch every­one else have fun

Don­ald­son said she hoped her achieve­ment will be an in­spi­ra­tion to oth­er dif­fer­ent­ly-abled peo­ple to achieve their goals and al­so their par­ents to en­cour­age them in their pur­suits.

Dr Car­ol Lo­gie, ad­min­is­tra­tive di­rec­tor of the uni­ver­si­ty's Fam­i­ly De­vel­op­ment and Chil­dren's Re­search Cen­tre said since Don­ald­son start­ed work­ing at the cen­tre with chil­dren her un­der­stand­ing had grown tremen­dous­ly.

She said she was a team play­er, hard work­er, metic­u­lous, and al­ways will­ing to lis­ten and be part of new ideas.

Lo­gie said Don­ald­son en­joyed think­ing out­side the box and was ex­treme­ly con­cerned about what hap­pened to peo­ple.

She said she had been an as­set not on­ly to the coun­try but the re­gion and had sur­passed her phys­i­cal chal­lenges to help oth­ers.

I worked at the cen­tre for the last three years and start­ed as a re­search as­sis­tant. Now that I'm a clin­i­cal psy­chol­o­gist I help with re­search projects, learn­ing events, and work with so­cial work­ers do­ing coun­selling."