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You knew something wasn’t right, but it seems to have taken doctors forever to render a diagnosis. When they did, it was not what any of us wanted to hear. You have an incurable disease. It is going to occasionally grab you by the ankle, flip you…

As humans we long to have someone relate to what we’re going through, to be accepted and understood. For a very long time I didn’t have to work very hard to achieve this feeling. Nowadays, it’s something I want desperately, but I know that to have it…

Lupus stinks! It consumes your life. It takes over so many aspects of your life. I can tell you that when I initially got my diagnosis, I really thought I could deal with it on my own. How bad could it be to deal with being sick?…

My diagnosis of lupus was a lot of things. It was a shock to the entire system. It was an introduction to a new world that was completely unknown to me. It was the catalyst to the greatest internal struggle I’ve ever experienced. But more than anything else,…

When you go through a major loss of someone close to you, well-documented stages of grief occur. These stages happen with death, divorce, and a major illness. I never realized that a diagnosis could cause grief. For me, it was not only a new revelation, but…

Though it took me some time to realize, there were certain things that I lost in the instant I was diagnosed with lupus. The saying goes that we never know what we have until it’s gone, and for me that couldn’t be truer. There’s a whole other…

Once upon a time, I had two rooms full of shoes. One room had high heels, the other had wedges. I rarely wore anything that was closer to the ground than four inches. I was, after all, the Hurricane in Heels, so flats were not in my vocabulary.

With three daughters to raise, my parents always worked hard to promote positive body and self-images within our family unit. Ever since I can remember, my mum has tirelessly emphasized that we should accept our bodies as we are, ingraining within us a sense of confidence and…

It’s funny the difference a word can make in the way you deal with things. I moved abroad, changed the way I eat, and research all I can, yet I was never one to meditate. I now meditate and pray. I do all of these things…

When I was diagnosed with lupus I lived alone, and I still live alone. Because of this I still need to do things like get groceries, even if I have just been released from the hospital with inflamed organs. Some of us “look great,” despite the handicapped placards…