…result in a fatal heart attack.
“It was really a scary moment,” the Grammy-winning artist says. “Had I not gotten that test, my life would’ve been different.”
“I look at it like it was a blessing in disguise for me because now, putting off tests? Oh no, I will not put off tests,” Braxton adds. “If all I have to do for my lupus and my kidney health is pee in a cup, I can pee in a cup. How many times do you need me to pee? If all I gotta do is get my arm pricked for some blood? Oh yes, I can do that. How many vials do you need?”
The eye-opening event has also sparked a partnership with Aurinia’s Get Uncomfortable campaign in hopes of encouraging and empowering people with lupus and lupus nephritis — a type of severe kidney disease caused by SLE — to “get uncomfortable” and prioritize their health by going to the doctor and completing routine testing to help prevent irreversible kidney damage, according to PEOPLE.
View this post on Instagram
The campaign is specifically targeting women of color. Black and Asian women are four times more likely to develop lupus nephritis and the risk of death is three times greater for people with it, Braxton emphasizes.
“It’s important to get those screenings — simple things,” she says. “The goal here is long life and old age.”
“I know we’re all scared sometimes to go to the doctor. Especially for me having lupus, I was scared, I didn’t want to know. But I find that knowing is empowering and it gets my doctors on top of my lupus and my kidney health. And that’s the most important thing,” the musician, who gets tested every three months, adds.
You May Also Like
Braxton hopes that her 15 years of living with the disease and dealing with heart and kidney complications will allow her to pay it forward to others living with the disease.
“I remember when I first was diagnosed, I’d heard of lupus but I knew nothing about it. I didn’t know
