06/24/2026
Five months after her first daughter was born, Christina woke up and couldn't move. Every joint in her body was on fire for almost two weeks straight. She didn't know if it was postpartum payback or something worse. She didn't know it yet, but that one terrible night was about to save her life.
The pain sent her to her doctor, who ran routine bloodwork almost as an afterthought. It wasn't rheumatoid arthritis. It wasn't postpartum. Her kidneys were off. A nephrologist referral followed, then a biopsy: IgA nephropathy, kidney function already at 25%. Strangely, the joint pain that started it all vanished and never came back. "It's like God put it on me just to get me to the doctor," she says.
Three and a half years later, her kidney function sits around 17-18%, dropping roughly a point a year. Her nephrologist is amazed she's held this steady. But the daily reality is exhausting in ways bloodwork can't capture: bone-deep fatigue no amount of sleep fixes, brain fog that scrambles her thoughts mid-sentence, floaters drifting across her vision like static.
There's another layer she's only beginning to untangle. In 2018, she lost her father suddenly, and she was the one who found him. Six months later, a panic attack on an ordinary night left her feeling like she never fully landed back in her own body. She describes living behind "a veil between me and reality" ever since, like she's watching her life through glass.
And yet, Christina keeps showing up. She's raising two kids under six, selling homes as a real estate agent, and teaching babies to survive in water as a swim safety instructor. She calls herself deeply faithful and joyful, even on days she feels stuck, wondering what's happening to her body and mind. Joy and exhaustion, side by side, might be the most relatable part of her story.
Now she's chasing answers conventional medicine hasn't fully given her: deficiencies, root causes, anything to slow the decline. She isn't leaving Western medicine behind; she's adding to it, hoping a holistic approach hands her back some energy, clarity, and time. "I'm feeling hopeful," she says, and for the first time in a long while, she means it.
