08/05/2026
⭐ Meet Lupus Warrior, Sherry Sandhu ⭐
I was diagnosed with lupus at the age of ten. I had no idea what it was. Neither did my family.
What came after were regular trips to SickKids, and then at fifteen, open heart surgery after developing lupus endocarditis. At the time, I wasn't really thinking of myself as someone with a chronic illness. I was a teenager stressed about steroid weight gain, a visible scar, and missing school. Wanting to get back to class kept me going.
For a long time, lupus was something I had, not something that defined my day-to-day. I went into remission, went to medical school, became a family doctor. I kind of just got on with it.
That shifted in the last few years. Post-COVID flare, then a serious infection, a head injury, strokes, and a high-risk cardiac surgery, where I had a cardiac arrest. It was the first time I truly felt, not just understood intellectually, that lupus could kill me. As a physician, I knew that. But somehow, until then, it hadn't really landed as my reality. The cardiac complications in particular have significantly shaped my journey, and I think that's something worth naming because it isn't always what people picture when they think of this disease.
There is a specific kind of grief that comes with chronic illness that doesn't get talked about enough. Some of it is concrete, like the grief I carry around fertility, because complications from lupus meant I wasn't able to have children. But there is also a quieter grief for the future you imagined, the plans and milestones that the disease quietly rewrites. That grief is real.
Lupus can also be an invisible illness. From the outside, you can appear perfectly well while the inside tells a very different story. That gap can make it difficult for others to understand the real impact of the disease, and at times, to take it seriously. For me personally, there has been something jarring about navigating a complex medical history while the common comment I receive is 'you look so well’.
Self-advocacy is its own kind of work. Managing appointments alone can be overwhelming, and navigating everything that comes with it becomes practically a part-time job. It takes work, community, and resources, and being compassionate with yourself through all of it.
And still, you can live well. The hard seasons have taught me gratitude and the value of the present moment. There have been full-circle moments, too. In medical school, I found myself working alongside my childhood rheumatologist at the same hospital where I was first diagnosed. And more recently, sitting with a newly diagnosed young woman in my clinic, I was able to offer something beyond the clinical. Those moments mean a lot.
Twenty-eight years of living with lupus, and it continues to teach me things. There is still plenty to navigate, unexpected moments, and genuine gratitude. All of it can be true at once.
