Azreen is a girl who led an active and interesting lifestyle before lupus. She loved group activities. Not only she was in the marching band, she also played sports such as netball and hockey when she was in high school.
Azreen has been a lupus patient for nine years. She was first diagnosed in 2010, at a young age of 14, when she was in secondary school. She started with Dicoid lupus, ie lupus that affects the skin. Visible dark red rashes started appearing on her face and limbs. She encountered intermittent fevers and joint pain. In fact her joint pain was so severe that she could not hold a pencil and write.
As a result of the active attacks of the lupus, her white blood count reduced tremendously during the period. The prolongation of such attacks without intervention would be fatal, therefore she was given immunosuppressant shots to stop her lupus attacks and manage the damage to her organs. She got the shots monthly, for a duration of ten months. Everytime the shots took approximately ten hours to be administered. After the administration, she will need to rest for one day or so. She also relied on prednisolone to increase the white blood cell count. She had to be excused from school during those days.
She had hair loss because of the attack and weight gain arising from the prednisolone ingestion. She felt sad because at her tender teenage she saw that her peers all looked pretty with spotless skin, long hair and slender bodies, whereas her exterior was completely messed up by lupus. She felt helpless having no visibility of what will become of her in the future.
In high school, kids around her were curious about her sickness, since they could see the red lupus rashes on her body. They asked her why did this happen to her, what disease is this etc. Questions that she find it hard to even explain to herself. Lupus being a disease not known of, has symptoms that are unfathomable by healthy people. Azreen recalled that when she told her teacher that she could not do her homework as her fingers could not hold a pencil properly, the teacher told her “cubalah dulu tu!” (Why don’t you try first?) For a teenage patient, this was a cruel judgement as it implied that she did not try harder, and if she did, perhaps she could hold that pen afterall? As a lupus patient myself, I knew precisely how she felt when she said she could not hold the pen. You try with all your might, and you were absolutely helpless, yet, you will not be able to hold that pen without feeling excruciating pain. There is no way for her to explain or argue with her teacher and tell her “I have tried very hard!”
Her discoid lupus has became less active several years after she was first diagnosed. However in 2017 she had kidney involvement (Lupus Nephritis) and pneumonia as a result of a triggered lupus. She attributes this to the various pressure she faced. She went through the recovery process once again.
She admitted that there was a period of time when she was in the dumps. She felt depressed and has almost wanted to give up on herself. Her mother was having a hard time accepting that both Azreen’s dad and Azreen herself has got lupus. There were times when she cried because she felt so helpless seeing Azreen in pain. But most of the other time, Azreen’s family and her mom has been a pillar to Azreen’s recovery.
Azreen spent her time praying and listening to her favorite K-Pop band, BTS, to take her mind off worrying about her sickness. She said she owed her recovery much to her own self-reflection. She knew that she could not continue to feel so bad about herself and forsake her life all together. She is now healthy and living a normal life. Although she is still wary about going under the direct sun. She has tried it before and she ended up admitted to the hospital for 2-3 days. She said she might try another time during the day, perhaps at 6.45pm. Some compromises have to be made.
” You must always believe in yourself, and know your own limits when comes to managing lupus. Tell your friends and family what help you need from them, and what are the circumstances that might trigger the attacks, so that they could work together with you to reduce chances of relapse. ” These are the advice Azreen gave, and she told me that she looks forward to be able to doing more sports, like hiking again. I wish her the very best and look forward to see her telling me more stories about her life again. 🙂
LUPUS 500 DAYS 