Overview of the past

I decided to start this blog in order to keep people up-to-date on the things happening in my life without having to repeat myself 300 times. As most people in my life know, I have been sick for quite some time now. I started having problems in the fall of 2005 and things have been getting worse ever since. I have seen 8 doctors and I'm still not 100% sure that they know what they are talking about. For the most part, my primary physician (who is an absolute God-send!!!) believes that I have SLE or Lupus, for short. For those of you who don't know what that is and don't feel like doing the research I'll try to give you a quick explanation. It is an autoimmune disease where the immune system works in overdrive and attacks the bodies healthy cells instead of the foreign cells. As the disease progress it can attack all different parts of the body but right now the only thing that has been affected for me is my joints and muscles. That means that I hurt a majority of the time, even with medication, and I don't have the stamina that a normal 25 year-old would have. Since the beginning I have tried to keep this mostly to myself but lately other people have begun to notice that things aren't as normal as they expect. Please understand that I'm a fairly private person and that sharing a lot of details is new to me. I am going to try my best to keep everyone informed but just as the progression of this disease is slow, so are the answers that go along with it. 2006 was a difficult year for me and for my family as we had many obstacles to overcome but with prayer and with each other, we are strong and positive about the future. I will try my best to answer any questions that people might have and I'm also willing to listen to any advice that might be helpful. Thanks for caring and thanks for reading!!