Gotta Start Somewhere

My journey began in the summer of 2006 when I started to notice odd bruising just about every where on my body.  I couldn’t recall bumping myself or an injury of any kind so I somewhat dismissed it because I have always bruised so easily.  A few months later is when the fatigue set in – I was sleeping upwards of fourteen hours a day – only awake to go to work and even then I drove to the park at lunch to take an hour nap to make it through the afternoon.  I honestly thought nothing of it – I had been going through a busy “season” at work so I thought it was because of that.  It wasn’t until my annual appointment in August when I brought the symptoms up to my doctor that life as I knew it would change. 

My doctor decided to run some blood tests to see if anything was abnormal.  As a person who is used to perfect results, I was surprised to find a voicemail from my doctor’s office waiting for me when I got home from work that same day – the message in a nutshell - get back to the lab, we need to run more tests.  When the second round of tests showed additional abnormalities I was referred to a hematologist.  This was scary stuff for someone who, up until this point in my life, never really had any serious health issues. I met with the hematologist that same week and the consensus – bone marrow biopsy…

My reaction:  “Come again?! Aren’t bone marrow biopsies for people with cancer??

My biopsy took place in January 2007 and by the following week I had an answer – it wasn’t cancer (thank you guardian angel), I had Lupus….

When I first started this blog (two months in the making) I wasn’t exactly sure what the subject of it should be.  Unluckily, I recently have had a flare up with my Lupus and thought that it might be a good place to start.  While it won’t focus squarely on lupus alone, it will include some of the daily struggles that a person living with lupus goes through and the lifestyle changes that I’ve had to make since my diagnosis. Mostly, I hope it will be a place that people can come together to share their experiences, exchange information & resources but more importantly I hope that it creates awareness and provides support & encouragement for all people whose lives have been affected.