I have been battling lupus since mid 2006 but was officially diagnosed in 2007 after almost completely losing my vision. Since then I have forgotten more pain and suffering than most people will experience in their lifetime. From a year and a half of chemotherapy and 6 months of dialysis, to bone marrow biopsies and blood transfusions, to plasmapheresis and laser eye surgeries, to stage 4 kidney failure and skin lesions that leave me unable to move, I have been though a LOT. I have lost just about all of my hair due to alopecia and chemotherapy, I've lost several teeth due to medication side affects, and I've lost several friends who have given up on me and my constant fatigue and need to rest. And most of it I have done with a smiling face and kept my head up. But lately I have been drowning. A little over a year ago I had my first case of pancreatitis. If you've never had it before, I sincerely hope you never do. It is without a doubt one of the most painful things I have ever experienced, and I have had injections behind both eyeballs before. I have to have one shoulder and both knees replaced due to severe bone death as a side affect of my medication, and even that isn't as painful as pancreatitis. During my first trip to the ER for my pancreas, they also found cysts on it that they believed could be cancerous. Thankfully due to an endoscopic ultrasound, they determined it wasn't cancerous, however my pancreas still likes to act up quite often and it has sent me to the hospital more times in the last year than I have been in the hospital the entire time I have had lupus. That includes the 2 weeks I was in the hospital when I had my grand mal seizure in 2010 that doctors originally thought was a stroke. Due to my chronic pancreatitis flares, I have missed a LOT of work. And unfortunately, I am hourly. You can only imagine how this has affected my income. I am DROWNING in debt. My medical debt alone is laughable. Last year ALONE my medical fees totaled more than $151,000. Just. One. Year. And I have had lupus since 2007. You do the math. But not just my medical bills are out of control, my regular bills. I find myself constantly having to borrow and beg and get loans just to be able to keep my roof over my head, my phone turned on, and food in my ever shrinking belly. I literally feel like I am drowning. Every time I feel like I can finally come up and take a breath of air, I get yanked back underwater and just tread there, scared of how I am going to keep doing this while also fighting for my life everyday. Doing both is becoming entirely too difficult to manage on my own. So I am putting my pride aside and desperately asking for  help. Anything is appreciated beyond words. Every year I raise money for the Lupus Foundation of America to help millions of other people with lupus as well, but this time I am strictly asking for me. I really need the help right now, I don't know what else to do.