I was 23 years old when my ex-boyfriend, under the influence of drugs and alcohol, ran me over with a truck travelling at around 45mph as I crossed a street one evening in Fort Lauderdale. I spent the next year of my life recovering from my injuries, and the next two decades making peace with the suffering it unleashed and learning to love my body again.You see, being hit was my “trigger”, and I would soon learn how triggers are intimately tied to the onset of symptoms in people who are genetically predisposed to autoimmune diseases. For some, their trigger could be a pregnancy, a stressful event such as a divorce or death in the family, or a severe illness such as COVID. Simply put, a trigger is something that taxes the immune system to the point where it goes haywire. My trigger was 3,000 pounds of steel crashing into me. And I have been trying to outrun the aftermath ever since.“You have Lupus. A disease that is going to cause you physical and emotional pain every single day of your life. There’s no cure by the way. Your previous life doesn’t exist any longer. So, suck it up, buttercup, and learn how to deal with it. Our time is up. Good luck,” is what my doctor should have told me at the moment of my diagnosis.
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