Usually the goal of a war is to win the battle. In the land of Lupus there is no winning the war. you can try to subdue the enemy all you want but ultimately the enemy is on a suicide mission to take over under any means necessary. Imagine your body as an army. Your white cells are the white knights sent to protect your body from evil, except one day something happens. A potion is given to the army. Subliminal messaging if you will, sent to reprogram them to think differently. To think something other than I must protect this vessel. The army is then reprogrammed. They are then taught the vessel is the enemy. So then the war begins from within, Attacking the new enemy and causing destruction. There is one flaw however in the reprogramming. The King was not reprogrammed. He is the only one who knows how things should be instead of how they are. Thus the anarchy begins. The army starts attacking their own men all the while proudly pronouncing to the king "We got another one Sire!The king is perplexed. What are these men doing? Why are they killing their own people? The casualties begin slowly at first then pile up rapidly. Welcome to Lupus.
You realize at a certain point things will never be what they once were. The pieces of your previous life become the casualties. Loss of relationships, jobs you cant do because of physical limitations, loss of the ability to have children due to medications you cant control. These are all of the things lupus took from you. It all becomes like a war zone. Blown up pieces of your old life scattered around you. You become weary. Tired of fighing the same never ending war year after year. You wave the white flag out of desperation. You finally give up. You give up any power you think you have. This is when the healing begins.
Isabel Allende once said "we don't even know how strong we are until we are forced to bring that hidden strength forward. In times of tragedy, of war, of necessity, people do amazing things. The human capacity for survivial and renewal is awesome."
As bad as this disease is and as much as it will take from you it will give you things and teach you just as much. After almost 20 years with it you begin to feel like you are made of steel. You learn to ride the waves. You also learn never to let it take you under. You fight back to somehow get back to the person you once were. Maybe we never stop striving to get back to the person we used to be. I know I never did. I refuse to let this disease take me out. Sometimes the will to fight is stronger than anything else. The human spirit is a hard thing to kill.
You mourn the loss of your previous life and then you just keep going, Through the good, through the bad, through it all. You find life again. You learn to live again and you learn to take care of this body that has a mind of its own. Eventually you show it whos boss. There is life after Lupus, even if in the beginning it seems like there isn't.
