A 22-year-old woman awoke in a hospital to be diagnosed with lupus, a chronic autoimmune disease that attacked her body. Once healthy and active, she faced a harsh new reality of severe fatigue and pain. The diagnosis came with a grim prognosis, including multiple warnings about her potential mortality. Over a month in the hospital, she received numerous blood transfusions and was informed of extensive lifestyle restrictions that impacted her daily activities and social interactions.
Lupus is a chronic autoimmune disease. A body turned against itself. In a cruel twist of irony, after years of mentally picking myself apart, now my immune system was doing it for me.
I was diagnosed with the worst class of it and told multiple times I might die. I almost did. The fatigue was relentless. The joint pain, unbearable.
I received over nine blood transfusions just to keep me alive. The list of symptoms and restrictions, well, they were longer than my age.
Tied with IVs to the hospital bed for more than a month, I remember the doctor rattling off day in and day out what I could no longer do.
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