Super Woman

"Lauren, I need your help,” she weakly said, as she passed me a box of a couple dozen bottles of pills. I was all of six years old and my Nana passed me the large slotted, weekly pill organizer.

“Make sure you count correctly and put the right ones into each daily slot,” she said. She passed me bottles of prednisone, Plaquenil, and other medications couldn’t even pronounce, used to treat her heart, thyroid, arthritis, and other dysfunctions of the body.

“One, two, three, four, five, and by the time I got to six, I asked, “Nana, why do you have to take so many pills? You’re so pretty. You don’t look like you are sick.”

I stared at her with pure curiosity, waiting for her response. “I have Lupus,” she said. “You will understand better one day. I need youto learn and how to sort and prepare medications. I remember thinking, she looked sad telling me this.

But my Nana, my grandmother was SuperWoman and could do anything. I just simply didn’t understand.

Flash forward a few years.

I am 17 years old, screaming, and writhing in pain in my bed. I didn’t fall. I didn’t hurt myself and my hair was falling out in clumps. This went on for weeks and I just didn’t understand.

One day my grandmother came into my room and said I needed to be tested for Lupus. She instructed me, that when I feel my worst, to get a diagnosis, I needed to get ANA (Auto Nuclear Antibody) blood tests right away. I eventually had enough and drove myself, in tears, to the emergency room because it was the weekend.

The doctor came in right away with several nurses. Apparently, I made quite a scene. He asked me what was wrong and what hurt me.

I quickly yelled, “Everything hurts! From my toes to myscalp, everything hurts!” He looked at me, as did the others, in the room, like I was insane.

“You need to test my ANA. Lupus runs in my family. Mygrandmother has it and her mother and sister had it.” I begged him as he stared at me with a face of pure confusion. He did as I said and orderedblood tests.

The results came back three days later.

Not only was it positive but the titer used to measure its activity was well over 1/2400, which is anastronomical number. I saw my primary doctor who had received my results. The date was April 20th, 2007 and I was diagnosed with Systemic LupusErythmetosis.

I was sent to a Rheumatologist for treatment. He later added Fibromyalgia to my diagnosis. I was still in shock at that point. I didn’t know thenbut my list of diagnoses would forever be expanding.

Weeks later, my grandmother sat with me and counted pills into their weekly slots with me. “One, two, three, four, five,” and before I got tosix, I thought to myself, maybe my grandmother knew. But I also knew that I was Super Woman too.

With the love of my Nana and family, I could doanything. I was a warrior just like my grandmother. I understood that she had me count those pills for a reason. Maybe deep down she did know, ormaybe she just needed my help. But when Super Woman asks for your help, you help.