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The Lupus Walk is Saturday, May 30 at St. Pat's Park (50651 Laurel Road) in South Bend.  Registration on the day of the walk begins at 9AM EST.  The walk begins at 10AM and will be followed by lunch at 11:30AM.  The silent auction closes at 12:30PM.

Most of you know how close to home this hits for me.  In April 2001 (I was in sixth grade), I started feeling strangely sick.  I went home more and more frequently until it got to the point that I could not go to school anymore.  I started having severe stomach pains that made it difficult to move and caused countless sleepless nights.  One month later, I was rushed to the hospital for an emergency appendectomy.  It was not my appendix that was causing the pain, however, and the surgery started an onset of terrible arthritic pain all over my body.  I finally was diagnosed in seventh grade with borderline Systemic Lupus Erythematosus. 

At the time, this meant nothing to me.  I eventually went on living the way I had before all of this happened until the fall of my eighth grade year.  After routine lab work, my doctors discovered that the lupus had started attacking my kidneys and that I would have to have chemotherapy to kill off those lupus antibodies.  I underwent six chemotherapy treatments while on heavy doses of prednisone.  My life slowly has gotten back to the most normal I believe it can be.  My sixth grade and eighth grade years were the most miserable (but also the most eye-opening) years of my life.  And, I can honestly say that I thought I never would have any problems again.  I guess I was a little too hopeful. 

While at the gym one night my freshman year in college, I suddenly could not feel my right arm and part of my face.  When I got back to my dorm, I realized that my speech was slurred, but I thought it would go away.  Two days later, I went to the doctor to find out I had had a stroke because of a lupus anticoagulation factor that I originally did not have and had not been tested for since I was diagnosed with lupus.  I am back to normal, though two of my fingertips are still slightly numb.  I am on an anticoagulant that I might be on for the rest of my life.  Never again do I want to have to go through the things I have been through.  Without a cure for lupus, however, there is a great possibility that I will.

I thank you so much for your support.  Please forward this to anyone who you think might want to donate, too.

Thanks!!!

Karen