Since I will be spending a whole semester with you guys I basically decided to share this piece with you. I hope you guys enjoy.<\/p>\n
Late Surprise <\/strong><\/em>– Amilka Lopez<\/p>\n \u201cYou are a very healthy girl,\u201d my doctors said, \u201cYou have no signs of sickness everything is good conditions\u201d. Well at least that\u2019s what it seemed like at the time.<\/p>\n When I graduated high school I remember that for a totally healthy girl the doctors appeared to be more interested in my labs. I think this was when I suddenly became sick. The doctors promptly made monthly appointments for me and I was always called a day before to remind me. \u201cIs this the parent or guardian of Amilka Lopez, we are just calling from the doctors office to let you know that you\u2019ve got an appointment tomorrow at 2.\u201d I really began to hate hearing this every month.<\/p>\n From what I recall, all I truly remember from my summer 2009, is working at the daycare and visiting the doctor\u2019s office. Visiting the doctor\u2019s office was not a normal thing to me anymore; I was actually anxious and a bit scared because I did not know what was wrong with me. Every time I asked the doctor, she would just say, \u201cSomething is wrong with your blood\u201d, and when I asked the receptionist that will call me to inform me that I still have to go in and take more labs she will tell me, \u201cYou have abnormal blood\u201d.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t know how I should of taken this but I actually thought it was pretty funny, \u201cHow can someone have abnormal blood. What am I not normal?\u201d<\/p>\n The doctors kept getting the same results over and over again so they all came to a conclusion and they decided to refer me to a specialist. The Rheumatologist is a specialist who deals with blood work and many autoimmune diseases. I remember when I went into the hospital for the very first time, I saw a lot of ill children and it freaked me out because I thought I was going to die. My Rheumatologist also made monthly appointments with me and I was required to do some biopsies. Every time I went to my appointments I had my good friend Giselle or my mother there with me. Giselle was actually there when I got a biopsy and I remember when I grasped her hand because I was terrified of the big needles they were going to insert on my neck. After that the doctors said some pretty scary things because they were still unsure of what I had since my labs weren\u2019t accurate. They said I had a thyroid problem on my neck, cancer and then lupus.<\/p>\n I believe it was November 2010 that I had been diagnosed with lupus. Lupus is an autoimmune disease where white blood cells attack your organs: brain, liver, kidney etc. instead of protecting them against any harm. The sickness alone cannot go away but they are treatments that can help control it. The doctor immediately told me what was best for me and then she prescribed me my first set of pills. I remember my boyfriend and his mother trying to teach me how to take my pills. His mother would give me a glass of milk and tell me to chug it and not to think of anything for that moment and I did, I took my pills for the very first time.<\/p>\n I never really expected last semester to be difficult on me. It all started when they referred me to the Adult Rheumatologist. Since mid June of 2009 I began seeing a rheumatologist specialist at The Children’s hospital at Montefiore (CHAM). My previous doctor Kathy-Kenneth said “It is time to let you go, but you still have couple of months till you turn twenty-one, so we will see you till then.” I was very sad and disappointed when I heard her say this to me. I mean I knew that sooner or later I had to switch doctors but it all happened so quick.<\/p>\n Ever since I started seeing CHAM I felt somewhat better. I still felt tired and weak most of the time but that\u2019s one of the symptoms of Lupus. I never really got any rashes on my face only the lesions on my scalp that I hated so much \u201cWell I still do\u201d. The lesions are just so itchy that I always felt like yanking them out.<\/p>\n I always went to my monthly appointments; I never missed any of them because I believe that my health is more important than anything. The doctor\u2019s office at CHAM will always call me before my appointments to make sure that I will be there and if not to reschedule. As I walked every month to my appointments I felt happy. I knew that I had good doctors because they will always call me just to ask me how I was and to tell me how my blood results came up.<\/p>\n Unfortunately, October 23rd 2012 was my last visit with Doctor Illowite (the head Dr.) and Kathy Kenneth. Now I had to go to the Adult Rheumatology. My experience at the Adult section was terrible. My insurance somehow stopped working and a week before the new appointment with my new doctors I happen to get a call from the front desk saying, \u201cMay I please speak with Amilka Lopez? It\u2019s from the Lupus Clinic at Montefiore.\u201d I respond and say, \u201cYes, you are speaking with her.\u201d and they tell me that I apparently have no insurance and that the doctor will not be able to see me unless I paid out of my own pocket. This was when all hell broke loose because I stopped seeing CHAM and my lupus wasn\u2019t in remission anymore. I needed to see a doctor right away. A couple of weeks later my mother tells me that I was no longer under her insurance and that I had to apply on my own now because I was considered an adult. \u201cThanks Obama, you made me miss my appointment- ahh\u201d. Any who I reapplied and when I finally see the doctor they told me that regardless if I had no insurance they would have still seen me because I am sick.<\/p>\n In addition, I am currently seeing the Doctors at New York- Presbysterian, the #1 hospital in New York for Lupus. I believe the hospital just got so sick of seeing me every two weeks in the Emergency Room with new lesions and outbreaks that they referred me and told me to make some changes with my insurance so that I would be able to see the Nephrology, Ophthalmology, Rheumatology, and Dermatology doctors there.<\/p>\n So far I have three to four months seeing the doctors at Columbia and my lesions still come and go but I am so much happier than I was at Montefiore. The doctors now really do care a lot about me. My Rheumatologist has me seeing other specialist just to make sure that I have no other disease apart from the lupus. My Nephrology doctor just did a biopsy this Wednesday and I am still waiting for the results to come.<\/p>\n At the moment I am proud to say that I am a lupus fighter. Having Lupus has really made me stronger and opened up my mind more towards other ill patients. I can some how relate to them more since I myself am also ill. My life has completely changed ever since I was diagnosed. Some of memories can never be forgotten and this is one.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Since I will be spending a whole semester with you guys I basically decided to share this piece with you. I hope you guys enjoy. Late Surprise – Amilka Lopez \u201cYou are a very healthy girl,\u201d my doctors said, \u201cYou have no signs of sickness everything is good conditions\u201d. Well at least that\u2019s what it […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":38,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-593","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.meadmedia.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/593","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.meadmedia.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.meadmedia.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.meadmedia.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/38"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.meadmedia.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=593"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/www.meadmedia.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/593\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":598,"href":"http:\/\/www.meadmedia.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/593\/revisions\/598"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.meadmedia.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=593"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.meadmedia.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=593"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.meadmedia.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=593"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}