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I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence: Two roads diverged in a wood, and I,

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

 

With the help of a cousin, I waited for a specific rheumatologist to return to Atlanta. My first appointment with him was in July of 1985. I was his first patient. After asking me many questions and listening to me – really listening – he told me he suspected I had lupus, but it was going to be very difficult to diagnose. His initial diagnosis officially was connective tissue disease. By then my hands were in pretty bad shape and I was dropping things all the time. My downstairs neighbor knew how bad a day was for me by how many things she head me drop.

I was sent to an occupational therapist and a physical therapist. We determined that I had no feeling my my hands from my fingertips to my elbows. I was given exercises to do at home and was fitted for hand braces to wear at night. When I think of those now I cannot believe I actually wore them. They were made of a very hard plastic molded to my hands, from just beyond my fingertips to about my elbows. This was to keep my hands open and hopefully keep them from cramping during the night. I ended up with many bruises on my forehead because I’d forget I had the braces on and I’d try to scratch an itch and bang myself in the forehead.

My doctor was so convinced I actually had lupus that he started me on plaquenil, and anti-malarial and mega doses of Motrin. Motrin was not hte answer. We tried just about all the non-steriodal antiinflammatories on the market and either they didn’t work, I had an allergic reaction or some other strange reaction. After exhausting everything , over the course of a few years, he gave in and put me on prednisone. I had heard that prednisone would probably cause me to bounce off the walls. It didn’t. In fact, I wasn’t even sure it was working, but it was.

As time went on, I developed more symptoms and more pain. My rheumatologist told me that if I developed eight of 10 symptoms he could make a definite diagnosis of SLE. It didn’t take long for two more symptoms to rear their ugly heads. I now had an absolute diagnosis of lupus. New blood tests that were coming out also started confirming the diagnosis. Basically, my body had developed an allergy to itself and was attacking my connective tissues, meaning my tendons and ligaments. The pain was always there, at times so intense I wanted to cry.

I plugged on. My boss was quite understanding of my situation and allowed me extra time for lunch so I could go home and take a nap. I needed to get out from under the flourescent lights, which were making me sicker. When I was asked to join a brand new magazine part of the deal I made was I would have flex hours, I would have my own lighting and if I needed to take a nap, I could do so on a sofa in the managing editor’s office. This worked out pretty well but I was still in a great deal of pain.

I asked my doctor about a support group and he told me not to join one. he was afraid it would bring me down. I was coping with the lupus very well and was learning on my own what I needed to do to make myself comfortable and less sick. One thing I knew I didn’t want was to listen to people complain about how sick they were and how awful their lives were. That would have brought me down. I was no longer able to do many activities I had enjoyed before getting really sick, but I never saw a dead-end. I saw a fork in the road. I could go one way and feel sorry for myself or go the other way and see what else was out there. I always chose to see what else was out there. In fact, had it not been for the lupus, I would never have become a landscape photographer or an avid bird watcher. For a while I carried around a copy of Robert Frost’s “The Road Not Taken.” I truly believe that I have taken the road less traveled and it really has made all the difference.

My mom and I have been trying for years to figure out just when I started having lupus symptoms. It could have been the convulsions I had after the baby shots I had. Who knows? It could have been showing up when I was taking ballet lessons. I’d come home with sore, red and swollen knees. It could have been in grammar school when I would get very nauseated and have to go home from school. My mom used to say I had 3:15 itis because a couple of hours later I was absolutely fine. I used to sit out in the sun – a lot. I always got sick, but I looked better with a tan. I’d also always burn, despite putting on sunscreen.

In college I was always tired but I studied hard and played hard. Isn’t that what college is about? One day I got back to my dorm room and was so exhausted I decided to take a nap. When I woke up it was confused as to why there was so much noise in the hallway at 6 a.m. Turns out it was 6 p.m. 24 hours after my “nap.” After college I was always tired and losing a lot of weight. I figured it was because I was working hard and playing tennis almost every evening.

One night I went out with friends and when I got back one finger was red, white and blue – very patriotic. Then this started to spread to all my fingers – on both hands. I was always cold and had no energy. I was diagnosed with Raynaud’s Disease. My fingers would get very cold and turn blue and white. The red would come in when circulation returned. It was very painful. I was told to move to a warmer climate. But there was more going on and we went searching for answers. Unfortunately, there were none. I was 24 years old and I kept telling doctors I was sick and it wasn’t in my head. Sometimes just a few steps to the bathroom from my bedroom wore me out.

After going one winter where my fingernails turned purple and the skin around the nails turned black, I knew I had to find a warmer climate. I was unable to play tennis because I couldn’t hold the racquet – and I had been playing five or six days a week. I had dated one of the tennis pros at the club, so all of them tried to help me figure out a grip that was comfortable for me. None worked. The racquet kept following the ball across the net.

For me, life has always been an adventure. That’s how I look at it. After college I spent seven weeks on Australia. It was incredible. I was there on my own, but I had a friend in Sydney and cousins in Melbourne, so I wasn’t really alone. One cousin who is one month younger than me had been to the States a few times and we’d gotten very close. As kids we talked about being at each other’s weddings. By chance, I was at hers! What a thrill.

So, when it became clear I had to find a warmer climate I made a list of criteria I needed in a city. It had to be a warmer climate. There had to be publishing opportunities. I wanted a city with a younger population for making new friends. The city also had to be a National League city so I could see my Cubs. I decided to take a look at Atlanta. For my 25th birthday, I took a three-week trip, kind of the long way, to Atlanta. I stopped to see a friend in Pittsburgh. From there, I went to Reading, PA, to spend my 25th birthday with my college best friend – I arrived on his birthday, two days before mine. I stayed there a couple of days then stopped to see friends in Greensboro, NC. I spent eight days in Atlanta driving around, looking at publishing companies (I was offered a job on the spot and turned it down) and I looked at places to live. It seemed to be the right place. On the way home I stopped to see a friend in Cincinnati.

I moved to Atlanta and eventually went back to the publishing company where I’d turned down the job and was offered another, better job, on the spot. I took it.  But I started having other issues. My hands were hurting from the Raynaud’s but also for some other reason. I was able to predict, very accurately, when rain was going to start and how heavy the rain would be. My knees started bothering me, as well. And, I was still so tired and losing weight. I chalked up the fatigue to a very active social life. But that wasn’t it.

I look back at all of these things now and the lupus diagnosis I finally received starts to make sense. According to WebMD, about two-thirds of lupus patients are sensitive to the sun and the UVA/UVB rays from other light sources. Looking at the list of symptoms on the Lupus Foundation of America site, getting sick in the sun made sense. But I also learned that fluorescent lights throw off UVA and UVB rays and THOSE were making me even more sick. My 3:15-itis was probably a reaction to the lights I was forced to sit under every day at school. To this day fluorescent lights are a real problem for me.

I’d always had allergies, but developed more, and developed food allergies as well as hayfever. Hurting hands, swollen fingers, swollen knees, fatigue, weight loss. It all started to make sense.

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