My wife has been diagnosed with lupus and is now struggling with her health condition. It’s difficult to understand her situation, and I honestly don’t see anything different from her overall health, as she seems perfectly okay. She looked fine, but she was currently struggling. However, I realized that there’s something more about the disease that I should know to be able to help my wife get over the symptoms that drastically made her weak and dysfunctional.
What Is Lupus?
Lupus is a type of autoimmune disorder that affects a lot of people worldwide. As for my wife, it hit her. In the said disease, the white blood cells do not only attack infections but also damages the healthy cells. The white blood cells become helpless and out of control. It causes symptoms like joint paint, rashes, muscle weakness, hair loss, and extreme fatigue.
How Did It Affect My Wife?
In my wife’s case, it’s already complicated, and her kidneys are already damaged. She has become sensitive to sunlight and spending too much time under the sun would make her feel unwell. She will apply too many lotions on her skin with high SPF, cover her body with a lot of different clothing, or just not go out at all. She also seems frustrated that she can’t handle her daily duties at home and work because lupus makes her extremely tired and stressed out. She experiences too many muscle pains that she can’t even lift a single basket of clothes.
As my wife continued to feel the pressure of having the disease, it eventually affected our relationship. Everything she does makes her tired and I can’t seem to do anything about it. Even though she sleeps for an extended period, it doesn’t guarantee a healthy rest. She can’t seem to do anything, and it affects her self-confidence. She then developed associated anxiety and depression due to her condition.
There’s no actual cure for lupus as of the moment that’s why it’s essential that my wife should take good care of her wellbeing and avoid stress as it can trigger the signs of lupus. There are no findings either that tells us where lupus comes from, though science determines that it could be possibly due to genetics and environmental factors.
After the diagnosis, she went on medication and also changed her lifestyle so she can somehow manage to control her situation. However, it doesn’t assure her of gaining overall health since she needs to change her treatment often because the previous procedures are no longer useful enough. She even experienced side effects too that made it more complicated for her.
I want to help my wife because seeing her in this situation indeed makes me feel devastated. I always make sure that she gets enough rest and she only eats nutritious food. Also, I consistently try my best not to make her feel too weary and pressured into anything. I want her to focus on getting her medication and regularly checking her needs. Though this is a complicated situation for my wife, I always make sure that I’m always by her side.
During these difficult moments, the best thing that we must all do is to strive hard to become better. Here are some motivation statements from health professionals:
- Jo Eckler, PsyD: “The most helpful definition of being positive is having hope and confidence in one’s ability to handle what’s tough, along with remembering that nothing is all negative all the time.”
- Jamie Long, PsyD: “Everything worthwhile in life is won through surmounting the associated negative experience. Any attempt to escape the negative, to avoid it or quash it or silence it, only backfires.”
- Nicole Martinez, Psy.D, LCPC: “No matter how bad something seems, there is a lesson to be learned, a skill to be improved on.”