Did you know that May is Lisa lupus awareness month? Well, now you do!

What is Lupus Awareness Month you may ask? It’s a month to spoil someone you know with lupus. Buy her chocolate, Sugar Mama’s red velvet cupcakes, free movie passes, massages at Spa at the Monastery, manicures, flowers, teddy bears, etc. Those are just some suggestions. She will also accept cash or cheques.

Okay that’s unfortunately a lie. Lupus Awareness Month is actually more important than me eating free cupcakes. Lupus Awareness Month is an initiative to help educate everyone on the impact that lupus has on those affected by it.

So let’s look more closely at lupus. Let’s learn what it is, how it affects all of us, and most importantly which celebrities have it.

EVERYONE LOVES LEARNING LUPUS FACTS

– Lupus is an auto-immune disease. That means that the immune system gets super confused and starts attacking the good parts of our bodies instead of just the bad parts. This causes a variety of problems like: joint pain and inflammation, skin rashes and inflammation, organ problems, fatigue, fever, photosensitivity (I cry every time I take a selfie now), and sometimes random 2 month peanut allergies. Go home immune system, you’re drunk.

– Lupus is ninety percent more likely to affect females than males. It’s like the virus version of those terrible online feminist haters who troll reddit.

– Lupus is not contagious. You can’t catch it just because I sneezed on you, but either way you should probably give me a stern lecture about the importance of covering my face when I sneeze. Why would you just let someone sneeze on you? That’s gross.

– Lupus flares can be triggered by sunlight (I guess living in Newfoundland is good for my health), infections, stress, medications and probably lots of other things that I don’t know yet. This is a learning experience.

-Although there is no actual scientific proof linking the autoimmune disease lupus to the mythical transformation of human into werewolf, we simply cannot yet rule out lycanthropy as the underlying cause of this illness (this is where I have to tell you in brackets that I’m kidding and although I do take lupus seriously I like to poke fun at my illness so please don’t send me hate mail).

Lupus can be quite debilitating, really. But it affects everyone differently. It is a pretty invisible disease, save for the butterfly rash you can get on your face from it, but even then I sometimes just look like someone who really needs to wash her face with some Clearasil. This often makes it really hard for people who are not affected by the disease to understand the severity of it. It also makes it difficult for doctors to see the signs and diagnose the disease in a timely manner. On average, it takes at least 6 years for someone to get their lupus diagnosis. That’s why raising awareness is so important!

Now let’s take a look at celebrities that have lupus (because we all know if a celebrity has something you will probably care more about it):

As part of Lupus Awareness Month, there are a few calendar events to take note of. May 10th is World Lupus Day, which is celebrated to honour the over 5 million people living with lupus around the world. On May 15th you should wear purple to show your support for someone with lupus and tell people why you’re wearing purple. Bonus points if that shirt has a picture of my face on it. And of course you can share the love and support by donating to Lupus Canada (by clicking here) or if you’re in the States you can donate to the Lupus Foundation of America (by clicking here).

You should also check out the Lupus Foundation of America’s website to find out even more cool ways to raise awareness this May.

Please do even the littlest part to help spread lupus awareness this month. I really want to someday live in a world where people suffering from this disease don’t have to wait as long as I did to receive a diagnosis and extremely important treatment. I know it’s kind of awkward if you just go out into the streets and start flagging down strangers to ask them what they know about lupus, but even putting on that purple shirt, sharing a link about lupus this month, or simply learning a few facts about the disease that you didn’t already know, would honestly make a difference. Lupus is a bigger bitch than Cersei Lannister, so let’s take her down together!

Okay bye.