Llaritza R. - Diagnosed at age 28

I started having joint pain when I was 21. I was trying to finish my capstone and graduate. At that time, I was diagnosed with RA. I did graduate, by some miracle, but had to move back home because I was no longer independent due to the crippling pain. In the next 4 years I had highs and lows as my health see-sawed through different medication regiments and treatments that were just not cutting it. 

Then in 2018, I woke up one early morning and I could not walk. My feet were in a stabbing, burning pain and they were limp. I was rushed to the hospital and after a biopsy weeks later, it came back as peripheral neuropathy due to a restriction of blood flow to my nerves. All I remember from the following months was sleeping, waking, eating, bathing. Crawling back to the mattress on the floor that my family placed there so I wouldn't fall off the bed. That's not a life you wish on anyone. Months later, my referral to a research hospital finally came through, and I was stabilized. I was able to walk again and feel my lower extremities. My rheumatologist thought I had mixed connective tissue disorder, because at the time my lupus looked like so many other things. 

My health kept getting better and better, until I got COVID. The inflammation that was triggered in my brain and spinal cord confirmed the diagnosis, and I wasn't even sad. I was relieved that lupus had a face and name. With the right treatment, the inflammation went down and I could once again think of something other than surviving. Until my hip began to hurt. So bad that I could not get out of my bed. Every fast movement sent a sharp piercing pain down my legs. I needed a hip replacement, if I wanted. I was 29 years old. It made me sad, because what if it didn't work? But the benefits far outweighed my fears. I am currently 1.5 years post-op, I went back to school to become an Occupational Therapy Assistant, inspired by the OT I met in the hospital a day after my surgery. She was in the business of helping people regain their and live their best life, and I know a couple of things about that to share with my future clients.