by Lynnette Southwood

Created on: June 30, 2007   Last Updated: October 31, 2008

My Story: Still Alive and Kicking
By Lynnette Southwood

I was diagnosed with Lupus in April of 1989, when I was 22 years old. I had two small children, no job and a failing relationship. I had not been feeling well for months and I was busy and distracted and I wasn't paying attention to what was going on with my body, attributing the signs to stress. I had lost a baby a year before when my water broke five months into a pregnancy, resulting in a severe infection and a forced delivery to save my life. I held my daughter until she died an hour and fifteen minutes later. There was no reason given to me as to why I lost my baby but in retrospect, I probably had Lupus even then.

There really is no telling how long I have had this disease but it made it's first real appearance in the early part of 1989. I was extremely lethargic and lost my appetite. I wasn't motivated and I kept getting flu like symptoms, yeast infections, migraines, blotchy skin, light headedness and my ears would ring and make whooshing sounds. I was going to a doctor who decided that I had the flu and he prescribed antibiotics for my rampant sinus infections. His check ups never went beyond asking a few questions and taking blood pressure and temperature. He never checked blood or urine and I didn't know enough to ask. I was on Medicaid, so he wasn't interested in spending any real time on me. The symptoms would get better with the antibiotics then would worsen again.

I saw that I was losing weight, something I was not happy about because my normal weight was 95 lbs at 5ft 2. I was trying to motivate myself because I saw that my relationship was not going well and I wanted to become self-sufficient. I started to take walks to exercise because I thought my unhealthiness was my doing. I realized that something was off and I was frustrated because I couldn't get anyone to believe me, not my doctor nor my boyfriend, who accused me of laziness and exaggerating my symptoms to get attention.

When I became too sick to care for my children, I called my mother and asked her to come over and get them. I explained my situation and how bad I felt and how it was an effort just to fix the kids a meal. I told my mother that my doctor insisted that it was the flu but I knew it wasn't and she found another doctor to see me the next day, a Saturday. During the examination, he took blood samples that couldn't produce enough blood. While I protested leaving my children and going to a hospital, he explained that I had

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