It’s hard for many people to understand the “whack-a-mole”-like life that is life with lupus. There are some lupies among us with relatively mild disease and for whom some treatment provides longer-term relief. But there are some of us…Well, it’s another thing altogether.

Most recently for me, for example, the medication I took for years to “control” (I use that term loosely, because my lupus was far from controlled) lupus caused toxicity in my retinas. Off of that med I went, and onto another, which has not staved off lupus activity and, in fact, has stirred up yet more antibodies to yet another organ that had been, apparently, unaffected until now. Sigh. The situation is serious, and I have to go off the second med and onto a very powerful third one, with the anticipation of side effects and a curtailment of many activities.

And does all of this mean that my lupus will, once and for all, be quiet?

Oh, probably not.

Because, as I’ve said before, there is no cure for lupus and it can flare up anywhere in the body seemingly at any time.  Yes, we lupies are all different, with a different set of symptoms and disease course. But for me, it seems like lupus is just one thing after another…As long as the researchers still aren’t sure what causes lupus, I expect that potential cures are still a long while away.

For many reasons, I believe that faith is essential to coping with chronic pain and illness. But there’s nothing like the mysterious, unpredictable disease of lupus to make me know that faith is a must. I can’t control the disease. My doctors don’t have all the answers. Researchers are still…researching. The all-powerful one in this picture is God, and He is my rock of support and safety, not a rock to avoid!

I’ll have to be on the new med for at least a year. It’s going to be a whole new chapter in my fight. But, fight I will, and moreso.

We have to stay strong and stay faithful, my fellow lupies and all who have chronic health conditions. We cannot let “one thing after another” get us down!

Blessings for the day,

Maureen