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Remove items from your saved list<\/a> to add more.<\/p>\n AAA<\/p>\n Addison Sharp, 20, lives with juvenile arthritis, which affects most of her joints. When, in 2022, she became one of the youngest Australians to have a full-knee replacement, her bestie, Sarah Bonifant, 20, helped her walk again.<\/p>\n Addison: I first met Sarah in year 9 online classes at St Aidan\u2019s Anglican Girls\u2019 School in Brisbane. My family had just moved back to Australia from Scotland; it was early 2020, a few weeks before we went into lockdown.<\/p>\n I moved a lot between countries as a child, so had never really forged deep friendships. But here was this one girl, Sarah. She felt solid, like an old friend, straightaway. She was quite quiet, which intrigued me, but as I spent time talking to her, I kept discovering these little pockets of information, which just kept drawing me in further. And she didn\u2019t make a big deal of my disease.<\/p>\n Most people\u2019s reaction, when they hear I have JIA (juvenile idiopathic arthritis)<\/a>, is pity and I don\u2019t need that. I was diagnosed at age six and have constant pain in every joint except my shoulders and hips. I describe the pain as being like static: sometimes, it\u2019s really loud and sometimes it\u2019s a super-annoying hum in the background, but there\u2019s never silence. I allow only special people in my life to know this about me and, in ways I can\u2019t explain, I just trusted Sarah from the outset.<\/p>\n There\u2019s no Sarah without football. She\u2019s played it since childhood and one of her heroes is Sam Kerr. Two years ago, she moved to North Carolina to play soccer on a US college scholarship for four years. She got homesick and missed her friends and family so much. On video calls, she was like a shell of herself. I was heartbroken for her. I spent an exorbitant amount of money sending her snacks from a Target near her to try to cheer her up. I desperately wanted to fly over to be with her, but I was still waiting for my Australian citizenship [Sharp was born in England].<\/p>\n Related Article Coming home after about nine months was probably the hardest decision she\u2019s ever had to make, but Sarah knows her worth. She\u2019s studying human movement and nutritional sciences and business management at the University of Queensland. And, as I like to tell her, no experience is wasted.<\/p>\n I go into hospital a lot for pain management. A year ago, I was having ketamine to help reset the nerves in my new knee and feeling very down. So I dreamt up a four-week trip overseas [this winter] with Sarah and two friends: Paris, Nice, Florence, Rome and Tuscany. I\u2019m most excited about spending a day or two hiking in the French Alps. It\u2019s going to hurt, but I know I\u2019m gonna have fun. The fun outweighs the pain. That\u2019s what I do with most things in my life. Is this worth the pain? Nine times out of 10 I can justify it.<\/p>\n In September 2022, four months after I had my knee replacement, I had to go back into hospital to have the scar tissue broken down; I\u2019m prone to developing scar tissue. I couldn\u2019t bend or straighten my knee, so they put me in a continuous passive motion machine, which pushed my leg past the range of motion I found comfortable. I hated it as it was incredibly painful. Sarah suggested giving the machine a funny name to make it less daunting, so we called it Janet. Back at home, I was feeling pretty down, but Sarah helped me to try walking. She held my arms and I took three steps.<\/p>\n That\u2019s our friendship. She didn\u2019t push me past my limit: it was all the encouragement I needed. There are very few people I feel willing to ask for help from \u2013 I don\u2019t want to be a burden \u2013 but I don\u2019t feel that with Sarah. She\u2019s seen the good, the bad and the ugly by now and I feel I can be totally honest with her. I know we\u2019re friends for life.<\/p>\n \u2018We joke a lot about swapping our body parts. She\u2019ll say, \u201cCan I have your knees \u2013 just for a day?\u201d \u2019<\/p>\n Sarah: My first proper interaction with Addison was at a weird, year 9, end-of-year camp on our school football ground. She was very lively, really easy to talk to, an open kind of person. Once I saw the other side, the Addison at home who doesn\u2019t have to have that mask on to deal with her pain, I realised how impressive she is. There\u2019s a very different side to her that very few people get to see.<\/p>\n I remember there was a really quick turnaround between the call saying Addison\u2019s operation was going ahead and the actual date for it. She put her best face on, but it was a lot. She was thinking, \u201cThis is what I\u2019ve been waiting for, but I\u2019m in the middle of year 11!\u201d<\/p>\n My philosophy, as her friend, has always been to just show up. After her operation, any spare time I had I\u2019d spend it visiting her in hospital and then at home. We\u2019d watch movies or talk, but it\u2019s also the kind of friendship where we can just be together without saying anything. A lot of people would\u2019ve given up or deferred their school studies, but not Addison. Despite missing half of year 11 and learning to walk again, she got a 94 ATAR, which is insane. A big part of Addison is about, \u201cI\u2019m going to show everyone that I can do this thing.\u201d<\/p>\n She\u2019s passionate about working in medicine in some way: it\u2019s the only thing she\u2019s ever wanted to do. Addison\u2019s whole life has been about doctors and hospitals and now she wants to be like the amazing nurses and doctors who\u2019ve helped her. She\u2019s studying medical laboratory science at Queensland University of Technology and talks a lot about Doctors Without Borders or being a doctor with the Australian Defence Force.<\/p>\n Related Article If we\u2019re out and about doing stuff, her pain is a constant consideration in my mind. Addison\u2019s very good at hiding her pain: I\u2019m one of the few people who can see it. Or maybe it\u2019s just that she\u2019s comfortable with letting me know she\u2019s hurting. She doesn\u2019t like other people knowing about it because she doesn\u2019t want them to worry. Usually, we just acknowledge it in some small way. There\u2019s often nothing either of us can do about it. It\u2019s mainly that she knows I can imagine her pain, but I think, in reality, it\u2019s that multiplied by 1000, really. We joke a lot about swapping our body parts. She\u2019ll say, \u201cCan I have your knees \u2013 just for a day?\u201d And I\u2019ll say, \u201cYeah, sure. Take \u2019em.\u201d<\/p>\n All her life, too many people have talked to Addison about all the things, including the careers, she can\u2019t do. But progress is being made all the time. In the US, there\u2019s a paraplegic surgical intern who\u2019s able to perform surgery using a special standing chair. She looks up to those people. She goes, \u201cI\u2019m going to do the things I want to do.\u201d<\/p>\n I just want her to do whatever she wants; she\u2019s had enough of the negatives in her life.<\/p>\n Read more from Good Weekend\u2019s Two of Us <\/a>column:<\/p>\n Get the best of Good Weekend delivered to your inbox every Saturday morning. Sign up for our newsletter<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n Save<\/p>\n You have reached your maximum number of saved items.<\/p>\n![\"Sarah](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/d8901b7b77e5ada513a76e7a10223e62e698526a.jpeg\")
Sarah Bonifant (right) has been a unique help to best friend Addison Sharp: \u201cThere are very few people I feel willing to ask for help from \u2013 I don\u2019t want to be a burden \u2013 but I don\u2019t feel that with Sarah.\u201dPaul Harris<\/p>\n![\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/20a5e6e3473ca53558355724e2edba0804bb5056.jpeg\")
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I know \u2013 and I know she knows I know.<\/p>\n