Excerpt from Speak Your Truth
Introduction
“Each patient carries his own doctor inside of him.”
– Albert Schweitzer, MD
I remember when I was first diagnosed with lupus. A coworker said to me “Oh, I am so sorry.” I think she thought I was at death’s door, that I was not long for this world. I also remember that instant wanting to say, “No, really, I’m okay. I’m not going to die from this illness. Please do not pity me.”
I still feel that way. If you are introducing me to someone, please do not introduce me as a person “suffering from lupus,” because I don’t suffer from lupus. I am happy to report I have no active disease. I consider myself not just a lupus survivor but a lupus thriver. I have successfully sent me disease into remission. I believe lupus can be healed or the course of the illness significantly improved if you are willing to do the mental work necessary to dissolve it. You too can possibly put lupus into remission as I did and have no active disease. It does not matter how life threatening your illness is, or how many symptoms you have, or how many hospitalizations you have had this year. You can heal yourself of this disease or at least greatly improve your quality of life.
I have learned over the years that if we wait for the medical community to come up with a cure, we will have a long wait. I think this illness may be too complicated to be cured with conventional medicine. I believe those of us who are diagnosed with lupus need to go within to make ourselves whole. Even if researchers came up with a drug for lupus that cured most people, it would still not make us whole. A cure is not the same as healing. While a cure will only suppress the symptoms of lupus, healing means to become whole.