The Silent Killer

I remember as a kid I would complain to my mother about not feeling well. She would nod her head and say I was fine that I was just making an excuse to not go to school! Which most of the time was probably true! However there were a lot of times that my energy was extremely low. I would run in P.E. for maybe 2 min and be extremely winded with my heart racing out of my chest. Little did I know these symptoms as a young kid were about to come into play in a huge way as an adult!

December 5th 2009, it was a cold night. I was getting my 2 yr old son and my 5 yr old daughter ready for bed. As I head to the laundry to grab towels to dry them off from there bath. I grabbed the towels turned around to leave the laundy room and all of a sudden my right arm flies up in the air and starts to wiggle back and forth uncontrollably. At this point I am feeling like I am being possed by a demon. I try to call out to my husband at the time and I cant talk. Have you ever had sleep paralyses? The state of sleeping or waking and you can talk you cant move you feel like your going out of your mind, and your extremely scared! That is how i'm feeling at this point. Finally my husband comes into the laundry room to see where I am and he see's me foaming out the mouth on the floor seizing. He calls 911 right aways and the paramedics come over. Their 1st initial diagnoses was that I was having a drug overdose. Which my husband said look at our house look at all the bibles do we look like druggies!!! She has never done drugs! So they took me to the hospital did a CAT scan and food nothing. Pumped me with an IV and sent me home. The next morning my sister-in-law came over to check on me and help with the babies. As we were in my daughters room talking I am holding my son and I hear a blood curttling scream come from my sister-in-law. She is looking at me screaming my name and telling me that my left side of my face has melted off my bones! At that time I fell to the floor dropped my son at the same time and started to have another seizure! Foaming out the mouth I couldnt talk however I was fully aware of where I was and what was going on I had people asking me questions and I was answering them in my mind, but I couldnt speak it. I felt like a prisoner in my own head, this was the scareiest feeling of my life! They called 911 and the paramedics came and took me to a different hospital. The doctors did a MRI and found blood in my brain. I had a stroke! They soon tell me that they believe the night before I also had a mini stroke! This was a medical mystery to them because I was only 24 at the time. From the outside I looked like a healthy young 24 yr old.

Its now day three since these episodes started and the doctors are performing a bubble test on my heart which is going to allow them to see if there is a whole that had let a blood clot travel up to my brain. Sure enough they found a whole a PFO(Patent foramen ovale) is a hole between the left and right atria (upper chambers) of the heart. This hole exists in everyone before birth, but most often closes shortly after being born. PFO is what the hole is called when it fails to close naturally after a baby is born. The doctor said the hole was the size of a tip of a pen. So now I have the option of putting a stint or open heart surgery and closing it. I chose to do open heart surgery and thank Goodness I DID!!! When the doctor opened up my chest during surgery he was astonished to see that hole was the size of his thumb! After an sucessfull surgery the doctor told my husband about his findings that included the size of the hole and that since I ahd that big of a hole my heart has been over working itself for some time and that my heart looked that an 90 year old persons heart and that I should not have been able to survive my first child birth let alone my second. He said they were a complete miracle! As the doctor was about to leave the room, he concluded his conversation with let her live her life let her do what she wants to do because I give her 10yrs tops! My poor family was mortified!!! I am happy to say that it is now 11yrs since the surgery I am 36 and I am still here, with two more kids!!!

It is now year 2012 and I am not feeling well at all. I decided to go to the doctor and I did blood work. The doctor diagnosed me with Lupus(Auto Immune Disease), which made a lot of since. I was loosing my hair woke up with pain went to sleep with pain. My lymph nodes would swell up all over my body I could barely lay down. I would be in bed for weeks on end. Living with Lupus would affect my skin with lessions my scalp with scabs and affect my organs. I constantly have a fever, and absolutely no energy everyday. Lupus effects my brain with severe memory loss, as if the strokes didnt cause enough damage! The doctor told me that Lupus probably played a huge part in the heart troubles and also the strokes I had in 2009. I thought back to all the times I had done blood work and other test to figure out why I felt so sick and no one could diagnose Lupus until this one particular time. This is why they call Lupus a silent killer. Because it takes that one magical time when you ANA blood work is at a high point and the doctor actually catches it with blood work. Years and years of testing and I always got everything looks great and your healthy as an ox.

Year 2017 came with more health obsticalls. I was diagnosed with Fibromyagia and Rhuematory Arthritus. This was nothing new to me because I kinda new I did have these issues. I could here my knees grinds my ankles would lose strength and I would fall. I couldnt open up a can or a jar with my hands. And also I would get the worst pains that would be so random in places and made no sense. Needless to say I have had an extremely large amount of medication thrown my way. However I declined most because I didnt want to be like a zombie and drowsy, because I have four children to take care of. So I go day to day with this pain.

Present day comes with worse memory loss pain and depression and severe anxiety, all do to Lupus. I urge everyone to get tested and even if it comes out negative keep getting tested, because it only takes that one time when they actually catch it. Lupus is extremely similar to cancer, in that some times you need chemo to kill certian things but since it is an auto immune diesease its hard to do chemo all the time.No one realizes the extreme symptoms of Lupus because you look perfectly fine on the outside, but on the inside you feel like you are slowly dying.

As a Lupus and Stroke survivor I have come to appreciate life and I have gained a family who are always there to support me whenever I need them, my Lupus family! Sometimes we feel like we are cursed but instead we are being molded into someone who can survive anything and become extremely mentally strong. Because we must remeber we have Lupus but Lupus doesnt have us!!! I wouldnt change the way my life has turned out because it has made me into the women I am today, and has allowed me to teach my children how mind over matter is real and can help you survive anything!