"In order to accept change and the suffering it brings, we need to find meaning in it"

"Because, it's only when you’re tested that you truly discover who you are and, it's only when you're tested that you discover who you can be. The person you want to be does exist; somewhere on the other side of hard work and faith and belief. "
I read this quote a few months ago when I was told I had Lupus, a chronic illness. I remember very clearly after I got the phone call I sat on my bed and knew my life was forever changed. Don't get me wrong with a illness like this it doesn't exactly just sneak up on you, and if I'm being truthful for about two years before that I knew I was sick and something was very wrong. I think maybe I was just scared to really face it, because I wasn't sure how strong I was. I had never had to find out before.
The months that followed that day were the hardest of my life. My doctor sent me to a rheumatologist, where I was to get more tests, meds and second opinions on the health I had once taken for granted. Everytime I set in a waiting room my body shakes I get so nervous, and my first visit to the rheumatologist was no exception. I read the posters on the wall over and over again. My fear wasn't that the doctors would find anything, but instead the other way around. That's the thing about lupus docotors never really have any answers for you. It's such a confusing and unexplored disease. There are still very few answers and no cure for something that has been affecting people all over the world since the 1200s.
I started my journey in January of 2010 and since then I've been to poked with needles, told to go here, see this doctor, have this test, take these life changing meds,try this,try that...but I've yet to have any real answers. I've learned to live and sometimes even strangly love this illness of mine, because I know it makes me who I am and what I'm supposed to become one day. However every time I think about it, my heart breaks because for the people whos life Lupus is truely destroying there is no cure.
My goal is to raise awarness and help find a cure for lupus. And I will(: