Five and half years ago, I was diagnosed with an incredibly rare autoimmune disease that only affects one out of every two million people. My immune system made antibodies that were attacking my lungs and kidneys, making them hemorrhage and ultimately fail. For a year I battled aggressively – pushing the limits my doctors put on my body, because it was an aggressive disease, so I needed to be aggressive. After a year of treatments including: chemo, steroids, dialysis, plasma exchanges and other procedures/operations as needed – I came out on top. But it wasn’t something I did – it was a miracle. I was dying; the very loud clock over my head was ticking so loudly that people stopped pretending as if they didn’t hear it. And then one day I was at less than 5% kidney function and the next I was over 60%. No one could explain it. And they still can’t.
It took awhile to accept that I was better. Until that time, I was always ten times worse than the worst case: Worst case was I would need dialysis in a year, and ten days later I started dialysis. Worst case was my body would not be able to get rid of what I consumed because dialysis may not be enough, but I lost more than twenty pounds and doctors began talking about putting a feeding tube in. It didn’t take long before I stopped listening to the worst case or for the doctors to stop making predictions.
