My Immune System is My Friend and My Enemy

Normally, our immune system is our friend. It protects us from harm. It frees us from invaders.

But for us Lupus patients or anyone with autoimmune illness, our immune system is not just our friend, but our enemy too. As a friend, it protects us from foreign bodies like bacteria, virus, fungi, parasites, dusts, or anything that are not part of our bodies, including transplanted organ. It also attacks our own cells that became zombies like cancer cells and those cells where the foreign bodies attached themselves, so that the good cells will be protected.  As an enemy, it attacks our own good cells and it will not stop attacking us until we die.

In other words, I, as a Lupus patient, have an abnormal immune system that attacks my kidneys (that's why I have nephritis), lungs (enlarged lungs), heart (enlarged heart), and my blood (chronic anemia). In other Lupus patients' case, their immune systems attack their pancreas (so they have diabetes), and other organs... the worst case is when the attack is made against one's brain (patients will suffer from seizure and other brain damage including paralysis).

This illness is not contagious.  So, you don't have to worry if I am near your, sit besides you or talk with you. Don't be bothered if I am always wearing face mask (I just want to be protected from possible infection because, currently, my immune system is compromised or being turned less active). 

In explaining my illness to other people and in order for them to understand the nature of my illness, my husband always compares me to a car with factory defects. But the car can be brought back to the sales agent for replacement, but he couldn't or don't have the courage to return me to my parents. What I mean is that this abnormality in my immune system might be present in me since I was born. It is possible that I got this abnormality from one of my parents, and that particular parent got this abnormality from one of his or her parents too. It is also possible that my siblings (my brothers and sister) and my children, also my nephews and nieces, have this abnormality too. In short, Lupus is our clan's wealth... It is our friend and enemy.

So, if you are related to me in consanguinity, then you might have this abnormality too. But you don't have to worry, because it doesn't immediately activate itself. According to the experts, STRESS is the triggering factor in the activation of this abnormality.