WCAX.COM Local Vermont News, Weather and Sports-Living With Lupus
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St. Albans, Vermont - October 29, 2008
Three days a week, 26-year-old Leah Martin sits in this doctor's office for several hours, hooked up to a dialysis machine.
"Tiring, draining, umm, I don't have any energy after I leave here," said Martin, of St. Albans.
Martin has been living with lupus for about 12 years. The autoimmune disease affects various parts of the body, such as the skin, joints and organs. Martin's diagnosis came as a shock to her family.
"Most of the time it affects women 35 and older after they've had children, for Leah, she was only 14 years old," said Mary Steele, Martin's mother.
"I wouldn't consider it a rare disease but it's certainly not common either," said Dr. Edward Leib, of Fletcher Allen Health Care.
Currently several hundred people in Vermont have lupus -- and it affects everyone differently. The disease is a bit of a mystery, making diagnosis difficult.
"You can see some patients who have very mild disease and some have very severe disease because of the nature of the disease that the antibodies can form against different parts of the body or can travel to different parts of the body, you can see manifestations from skin rashes to arthritis," Dr. Leib said.
"For me, it's my kidneys," said Martin.
Earlier this year, Martin learned her kidneys were not functioning properly.
"I had a kidney biopsy in February and the results showed that there was no function," Martin said.
The good news is she didn't have to look far to find a donor -- Martin's mother will give her daughter one of her kidney's next month.
"I've been blessed to be able to give her life twice," Steele said.
"It means more than I can say, or ever show," said Martin.
Martin's recovery time from the surgery could be as long as 10 weeks. She will have to treat her lupus with drugs for the rest of her life.
Doctors say while there is no cure for lupus, with the proper treatment, survival rates can be as high as 90-95 percent.
For more information -- www.lupus.org or www.theleahmartinkidneyfund.com.
Beth Parent - WCAX News
