~ Day 16 ~ Wanted Diagnosis

Many years ago, 18 perhaps, I started to get sick. Nothing too serious at first but enough to start making my college studies hard and life less energetic. I figured the tiredness was from working too much, studying too much and partying too much. The pain must have come from old sports injuries. These symptoms went on for a few years until I got a bad cold. The cold didn't go away and I just couldn't seem to get better. This began 6 months of testing to finally determine I had Lupus. I had never been so happy to hear those words. Yes, happy. I wasn't crazy or lazy or a hypochondriac. There was validation for why the normally vivacious and spunky Sharon was a distant memory. There was something attacking my immune system and I had no control over it. Armed with a diagnosis, I began my research into this disease, reading everything I could get my hands on. I learned quickly that Lupus would become the center of my world that I would dance around for the rest of my life. Lupus presents in many different ways and affects everyone differently. For me, it has been systemic organ involvement, attacking almost every organ, gland, joint and muscle as if they were foreign to my body. Essentially, my body is fighting itself. It started with my thyroid, then the gallbladder, the lungs, the heart and ultimately my kidneys in the form of Lupus Nephritis. The LN basically began attacking my kidneys leaving scar tissue in its wake rendering them more unable to do their job. Over the years, I've had several different treatments including prednisone (thanks 60 lb. weight gain), a lovely chemo cocktail and a radical change in my diet. Over the last year or so my kidneys were getting worse and the doctors ordered yet another ultrasound of the bad boys. And so I went for the normal looksie and inevitable "yep, your kidneys suck" speech. But had it not been for already bad kidneys and the the wanted diagnosis of Lupus, they wouldn't have found the first mass on my right kidney..........so then came the Unwanted Diagnosis.
~ still climbing mountains ~