Tiffany Thompson knows what it means to have her life change in an instant.
The Montrealer is living with three autoimmune diseases, Lupus, Scleroderma and Myositis, and has just 42 per cent lung capacity. Two years ago, she experienced kidney failure and was hospitalized.
But rather than allow her diagnoses to define her, Thompson picked up a tennis racket.
Tiffany Thompson (Submitted by: Tiffany Thompson)
Tennis has given her a way to cope, connect with others and reclaim a sense of possibility while living with chronic illness.
“Three months ago, I was having a flare up for my Lupus and it consists of having rashes,” said Thompson. “So I had a rash on my eyelid, I had a rash on my thigh, and I had to go see a dermatologist. When the first primary caregiver treated me, she had no idea what was going on and she automatically assumed that it was Psoriasis because she was unfamiliar of how a rash can show up on darker skin. So she called for one of her colleagues to kind of help her and her colleague confirmed, no, it’s just a Lupus rash. So that determined what they were gonna prescribe as a treatment, but the first doctor was just so unfamiliar with this and it re-triggered in me that they need to do more research on people of colour that have autoimmune conditions so that they’re more familiar with it and they don’t get misdiagnosed.”
Tiffany Thompson (Submitted by: Tiffany Thompson)
For Thompson, the experience was a reminder of the challenges that can come with being a person of colour navigating an autoimmune disease.
“I’m most familiar with Lupus because most of my symptoms are part of the Lupus family and that’s the autoimmune disease that’s affecting my lungs,” said Thompson. “So how it presents itself is that I’m often shortness of breath, I’m coughing all the time, I’m just extremely fatigued and the list of symptoms go on and on and on. With Scleroderma, it’s more like in my skin, like there’s tightness of my skin and it’s something that my rheumatologist monitors closely and then myositis, it’s affecting my kidneys. So two years ago I had kidney failure and I was hospitalized for that. So it’s things that come out of nowhere, often induced by stress, but it’s symptoms that people think are normal, like they think it’s a common cold or a flu, but in autoimmune disease, it means something is happening in the body and you need to be seen ASAP.”
Tiffany Thompson (Submitted by: Tiffany Thompson)
The conditions have forced Thompson to reconsider how she measures her days.
Simple tasks can become calculations: how many steps she can take before needing a break, how long she can speak before losing her breath and how much energy she has left.
“I don’t want you to keep masking your symptoms, just to make other people feel comfortable,” said Thompson. “I know that we look completely normal and we look from the outside, we’re just, we look like we’re thriving and we’re doing so well and we look so healthy, but don’t be afraid to accept that side of yourself and take care of yourself. Put you first because most probably the reason why you’re facing an autoimmune condition is because you’ve always put everyone else first. We don’t know the causes of autoimmune diseases, but they’re often related to keeping things in due to stress and just not advocating for yourself. So take this as a lesson that you’re not suffering alone,” said Thompson.
Tiffany Thompson (Submitted by: Tiffany Thompson)
For Thompson, tennis is about more than sport.
It has become part of a larger story about resilience, community and finding ways to thrive despite a diagnosis that can make everyday life unpredictable.
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