Hey, my name is Kimmie! I am a mother to a beautiful 12 y.o. boy and I have been married to my best friend for 10 years! I got diagnosed with Systemic Lupus Erythematosus (SLE) about a year ago and was extremely lost. SLE is not curable; we can only manage the symptoms. Thus began my journey. I have a plethora of different specialists: primary care, cardiologist, rheumatologist, pulmonologist, pain management, OB-GYN, dentist, and vision!

In 2018, I started having heart complications, so we monitored them closely, and I ended up in the hospital having open-heart surgery. While I was in the hospital, I had a fever of 105.3, and they couldn’t get it to break, so I was in a medically induced coma. Turns out I had a stroke; a piece of my heart that they were working on got into my bloodstream and up to the temperature cortex of my brain, making it so my body couldn’t regulate its temperature. I was hospitalized for an entire month! I was in a coma for three weeks, then did rehab for a week. Then we got the ANA test done that gave me the results of SLE.

SLE has impacted my entire body. It has caused me painful hair loss to the point brushing it hurts, my vision has gotten worse, my heart has PVCs (premature ventricular contractions), my lungs are affected so much so that I can’t take a full breath and require oxygen, my reproductive system was affected because the SLE caused my uterus to be inflamed and I had to have a hysterectomy, and three weeks after that, my ovary twisted (ovarian torsion) and I had to get it removed. Now it’s affecting my legs; most days I can’t move my legs without falling over or crying out in pain. I just spent a week in the hospital trying to get everything under control.

My husband works 2 full-time jobs, and with all the medical situations and appointments, he has missed a lot of work because he has to drive me around and help my brain function because the stroke affected my memory. I need to help him take some stress off any way that I can! My son is even trying to sell his things so he can help support us. I feel so helpless. I have applied for SSDI, but I have been told that it takes a long time to get approved. Please, anything helps ❤️