I hit the ground running with my eyelash business. My friend had designed some pretty fly business cards for me. They were all professional looking and I was very proud. I went around town leaving cards in various businesses and passing them out at different events. Everyone from the beauty supply owners to students on the city’s three college campuses were extremely supportive. On top of the eyelashes, I hadn’t yet resigned from being a flight attendant. Due to the economy, my airline offered leaves to flight attendants where I didn’t have to work but I was able to keep my flight benefits. I was all over it. Having my own business and free travel? Are you kidding me? Making my own schedule and doing things that I wanted to do. Eureka! I had finally made it!
When I did have to return to flying, it became apparent that I couldn’t maintain a business in the south and be a flight attendant in the north. The unpredictability of an aviation schedule left me unable to consistently service customers in Tallahassee. So in March of ’08, I resigned from the airline and accepted a job as an eligibility specialist. I hated it, bottom line. I needed the job because I needed medical benefits. I was back to a place that I didn’t want to be, behind a desk. Ugh!
The project that my team was working on was very stressful to say the least. Every other day, there was a protocol change being made. Then a week into training, my Aunt Helen passed away two days after my birthday. So now I have to hightail it back to Michigan to bury my aunt. Florida sunshine+job I hate+aunt’s death=perfect combination for a lupus flare. I remember being so tired. I also remembering saying that I couldn’t stop because I had things to do.
That August, I drove to New Orleans to meet my mom for her birthday. I know I made it there and back on a prayer. Talk about someone being exhausted. I just wanted my mother to enjoy herself in New Orleans. I could’ve laid up in that nice hotel for three days with no problem but what kind of birthday would that have been for my mother? On the final day of the trip, she hugged me and said “your nose is raw.” I knew there was something going on but leave it to my mother to put a name to it. My skin surrounding nostrils were pinkish. I don’t know if it was denial but I chalked it up to being tired. Saying that it was a lupus flare-up wasn’t even on my radar.
A week later, I had five wisdom teeth pulled. Then, all physical hell broke loose. The corners of my mouth split so bad that it left me looking like the Joker. I was beyond miserable with my job becoming increasingly more and more stressful. I was beginning to get tired of the drive from my office to the salon to do eyelashes. I remember walking around thinking that something was going to have to give.
Getting up for work each morning was becoming a chore. I know some folks don’t like their jobs and dread going to work but I literally had to plot and plan to make it to work at 7:30 a.m. Once at my desk, I would take pictures with my camera phone of my ears that had turned black like coal and open sores had began to form. A dark rash started to cover the underside of my chin and my back. I chalked it up to being the dye from a weave that I had sewn into my head. I figured that I was just having some sort of terrible reaction to the weave hair. I found a couple of my clients who said that the same thing had happened to them. In my mind they had corroborated my story and therefore, I was good to go. Once again, lupus never crossed my mind. Until one day when I woke up in a cold sweat and it was 100 degrees outside....
Dark lupus rash forming on my ear.
Lupus discoloration behind my ear.
Dry rash forming under my chin (it didn't stop me from eating though :).
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