r/lupus • u/therealpotterdc Diagnosed SLE • 15d ago

Links/Articles Great article on Flannery O'Connor and lupus

Hey friends! When I went to college at Wake Forest University in North Carolina, the great Southern writer Flannery O’Connor was held to a nearly saintly status. I knew that she had died at 39 from complications from lupus, and her own father had died from lupus when she was 10. This is what I thought about when I got my diagnosis.

Today I'm on medication developed in 1995 (CellCept) and 2014 (Benlysta). I'm feeling better than I have felt since my diagnosis. I screwed up my courage to see what I could find out about the writer’s relationship to her illness, and I ran across this really wonderful article.

When I read about the gaslighting from her own mom and the doctors around her diagnosis - it was unsettlingly reassuring to know that was a thing back then.

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6

u/Gullible-Main-1010 Diagnosed SLE 15d ago

thanks for sharing. this inspires me to keep writing my book!

2

u/therealpotterdc Diagnosed SLE 14d ago

Do it!!!! 🙌🏻

4

u/enokhi Diagnosed SLE 14d ago

There was a movie made about her life and writing a few years ago that I really enjoyed: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt26442871/

2

u/therealpotterdc Diagnosed SLE 14d ago

Oh awesome! Thank you!

2

u/ogcggmg 14d ago

This looks SO good!

3

u/sqplanetarium Diagnosed SLE 15d ago

Wow, I never knew that about her! If only we could send her a care package of hcq and Benlysta.

2

u/batmanwiched Diagnosed SLE 14d ago

Bookmarking to read later. Thank you!

2

u/polygenic_score 14d ago

Lupus is much less common in men, so the occurrence of SLE in both her father and herself suggest a Mendelian genetic disorder. A single misspelling in the TREX1 gene could have been responsible for her condition https://omim.org/entry/606609?search=lupus%20trex1&highlight=lupus%2Ctrex1