Stephanie H. - Diagnosed at age 12

Hello! My name is Stephanie, my background is Guatemalan and I was diagnosed with lupus when I was 12 years old, year 2007-2008. At first it was difficult to treat me for lupus as it wasn’t a popular diagnosis back then. I had many diagnoses from doctors when we finally came to the conclusion it was lupus. I was doing good on medications until 2015. 

In 2015 I lost my brother who was 21 at the time and pretty much avoided anything in taking care of myself. That same year, 2015, I was 19 at the time, I began to receive hemodialysis due to kidney count. I was able to be removed from hemodialysis a couple months later since it was starting to get better. 

Fast forward to end of 2016, kidney was failing again and this time I needed to get a transplant. My loving aunt was amazing enough to donate her kidney to me and received the transplant year 2017. Everything was going great since then but unfortunately due to the lupus and also not being consecutively with my medicine for a little, it began attacking my transplant kidney and at age 30 I have decided to try PD dialysis to have more flexibility. 

I wanted to share my story to show others they’re not alone and even possibly be able to relate. Once starting PD dialysis, I will need another transplant which I’ve been fortunate enough to have friends and family help with donating. Growing up it’s always felt like I couldn’t belong because of my illness and there were times I wanted to feel “normal” and also not deal with the medication side effects. I do continue to have faith and have been maintaining myself in the healthiest ways I can. For all you lupus warriors, lupus cannot define us and continue winning your battle against it!