Meet Monique (Moe) Kusky of Mount Morris, MI. Moe has been fighting lupus everyday for 26 years.

**Moe’s Story in Her Own Words:**
It has been 13 years since my last update. Wow, that's a long time. To think when I started this journey, I would have never thought I could say that. I've spent many days sad, crying, wondering and worrying but more recently, I've learned life is way too short. Since my last story, I had just had my son, who is amazing by the way. He's now 14 years old and I have lived to watch it all. That in itself is a story.
A lot of things have happened since that summer when I finalized my story back in 2010...some good, some bad but they definitely have made me who I am today. I am still kicking lupus' ass everyday and will never stop. I am currently one of the luckiest women alive and have an amazing man by my side, who never lets me face anything alone. He is holding my hand every step of the way. He loves my boy more than anything in this world and it shows. He is his safe place as well as mine. A nurse once told me he sits the whole time holding his pee because he doesn't want to leave my side. Please tell me how we deserve this amazing man.

Right about 6 years ago, I started doing a chemo Benlysta infusion and everything was going good. My body loved it and I was finally starting to feel some form of normalcy. I noticed I had a little more energy than normal, my skin was greatly improving, I hadn't seen results like this in I couldn't tell you how long. Then unfortunately, my body decided that it wanted to be silly yet again. I quit smoking cigarettes after ending up in the hospital with a blood clot that damn near killed me. I had some massive headaches for about 4 days by the time the fifth day come around I couldn't even pick my head up off the bed. I was rushed to the hospital only to find out that I had a 100% blockage in my internal jugular due to a blood clotting disorder, Antiphospholipid syndrome (APS). APS is very common in lupus patients. So I ended up with very weak veins, they would poke me and then my vein would just decide that it wanted to clot off on its own and stop giving blood. So eventually, my only option was to get a med port implanted into my chest and the surgery itself was very scary. I watched videos to prepare myself and boy, did I ever scare myself, but to be honest this thing has saved my life. I don't have to get IVs anymore, we don't have to worry about getting any blood because that's tapered directly into the main blood flow in my body. But due to this lovely clotting disorder, I ended up with 100% not acute blockage in my internal jugular vein. I know that sounds really scary, but the body is amazing and some people are lucky enough and their veins do magical things. They can make their own flow which is exactly what happened to me. So at this moment, I'm currently on blood thinners for the rest of my life because of Antiphospholipid syndrome. It can cause strokes, so Eliquis is now my new best friend.

I have to say, my mind set today compared to where I was 13 years ago is a whole lot better. I don't take anything for granted. My doctor's appointments are a lot more crazy and I have to see them a lot more frequently than I wanted to. And I now take 13 pills twice a day, which helps a lot though believe it or not.

In 2021, I ended up getting COVID 19 and I was one of the lucky ones that was able to receive the COVID antibodies infusion. Within days, my face had drastically improved with the infusion and this may sound crazy, but it made my face look amazing. My face has never went back to the way it was before and I couldn't be happier. I had no lingering side effects and life went back to normal, well whatever our form of “normal" is.

In 2022, life's stress hit hard my love, my rock, my sidekick was diagnosed with a form of cancer that is not supposed to spread. But, this man and our family went through so much. He was diagnosed and fighting thyroid cancer. His cancer spread 3 times that was 3 major surgeries to save his life. During this time, the stress took a major toll in my life. My kidney function started to struggle and my blood pressure as well. Stress is not a very good thing when it comes to any kind of underlining disorder. So that's where a couple of the extra medications came in. I started two different blood pressure pills and a mood stabilizer, both of which help tremendously. I have been maintaining a healthier lifestyle, changing my diet and I stopped smoking, which made food taste much better and I now have put on a little bit of weight, which everybody knows that I needed. My life and my health have been pretty stable lately, taking all of my meds doing my treatments every 3 weeks and trying to stay as calm as possible. Well, as calm as I possibly can be. I currently help take care of my mother and I have a 14-year-old autistic son who drives me crazy and was recently diagnosed with liver cancer. So this is a whole new process for us. My old man who fights the fight and myself, so life is crazy but we manage. We hold each other up day by day, one step at a time, one foot in front of the other.

Monique (Moe) Kusky

Abbey McMann

Rakiba Mitchell