A Husband's Perspective on Lupus

The way I met Meredith, we went to high school together down in Peachtree City, Georgia. I was a senior when she was a freshman. So I kind of knew who she was. Then after college I was back in town for Thanksgiving and I ran into her Thanksgiving of 2007 and we went on a date November 30th, 2007. And we dated for four years and got married. I think the first time I found out about her lupus was more about her... coming from her mother, kind of a 'make sure she's wearing sunscreen.' I was like, "Why can't you get sun?" because when I first knew her in high school she was always tan and everything. I started questioning why she had to wear a hat, and sunscreen, and everything and I found out it was lupus, which I didn't know anything about lupus. When I first found out that she had lupus, I mean I wasn't really startled because I didn't know exactly what it was, and then just finding out from her more details, looking on the internet, it wasn't really a big deal, a big issue with us. It's just, she'll wake up and be like, "Oh, I'm sore," and then it'll kind of go away after she starts walking around. Then getting dressed, she just kind of can't move her arms in certain ways. Her pain doesn't affect anything between us really. The only thing is she'll complain about some aches and pains here and there. I might have to put some kind of lupus cream on her shoulders. Now that we're married, we're not staying out until 2, 3 in the morning anymore. The issues were more when we were going out before we were married, before we were engaged, in the wintertime because it's always worse in the cold weather for her. The main issue that kind of scares me is what it's going to be like for her to be pregnant because I know people with lupus have issues. She might not be able to have kids, which would be a big deal, but there's ways around that, but that's kind of the biggest issue I see from it. The only advice I would give someone is to listen to the complaints. Don't brush them off, because there really is pain and there might be a lot of complaints a lot of the time, but she's the one going through it and having the pain. So just be on her side.