In the past year since my diagnosis I have had a flood of memories coming back to me. Things that didn’t make sense at the time all of a sudden have new meaning. It’s like I have been having years and years worth of “Aha!” moments happen in a relatively short amount of time. I have spent countless hours on the phone with my mom going over what seems like my entire life, moment by moment looking for the one that makes everything come together.
It wasn’t too long ago that my mom and I had one of these talks and found what may actually be that moment. It was the Christmas of my freshman year in high school, December 1996. Still don’t know what really caused it but I got sick. Not the average cold/flu of most Floridians but a knock-you-on-your-ass-feel-like-you’re-gonna-die sick. School went on break December 20 I was sick in bed within days and slept through the holidays. I don’t remember much about that vacation just a few moments here and there. My mom gave me the missing info on our talk. I remembered waking up on Christmas Eve day to make dinner, I don’t remember going back to bed. I remember my brother waking me up and helping me get dress for New Years Eve, I don’t the rest of the night. I remember trying to go to school once the break was over, never went to school. The next thing I remember from there is getting a call from my friend on my birthday nearly two weeks later. Nothing was ever the same after that. From that point on I always felt as if I had a cold, I never had the same kind of energy and I had enormous pain for which I had no reason. That was Spring 1997 and I wasn’t finally diagnosed with Lupus until Fall 2007. Ten years of symptoms, ten years of people thinking I was crazy, lazy, faking… ten years of suffering in silence.
So here I am Spring of 2009. It has been 12 years since I first felt that something wasn’t right and I still feel as if nothing has changed. I have more responsibilities than back then but I still has all of my dreams in hand. George (@toofat2serve) has been with me since day one and I can’t imagine how hard it has been on him to watch me go through all of this but I also can’t imagine being able to do all that I have without him. I still have a lot of the same symptoms, some have gotten worse and others have brought their friends along for the ride. And I still feel as if I have everyone looking at me thinking that I’m crazy, lazy and faking. One thing that has changed is I’m not as afraid to let everyone know how I’m feeling and why. I’m getting better at it because I am done with suffering in silence.
So here it is my newest “Aha!” moment. No matter what I do right now in the short term, I’ll never be able to shake Lupus away from my life. But I don’t have to be silent. I don’t have to accept people’s criticism regarding myself. No matter what they think, I know the truth and odds are they’re going to hear about it.