On September 17^th 2004 I was diagnosed with Lupus. The consultation lasted 10 minutes. My consultant advised me to remove ALL stress from my life and, “Whatever you do don’t go home and look it up on the internet. You’ll scare yourself to death!” In the absence of any information that’s exactly what I did. During my search I stumbled upon the Lupus UK website. I contacted them and was encouraged to attend a support group in Worthing. There was no group in Brighton & Hove at the time. It was through this meeting that I met the wonderful Trish Holme, Vice-Chair of the Sussex Lupus Committee.

Not long after I was contacted by Harsha who was newly diagnosed with Lupus and lives in Brighton. We met for coffee and decided that rather than travel to Worthing we would meet in Brighton and support each other. A few months later we were contacted by another person, newly diagnosed with Lupus, and she joined myself & Harsha. Before we knew it we had a small group. With the support and encouragement of Trish Holme, we decided to make it official and on May 10^th 2006, World Lupus Day, we started and launched the group in The Red Roaster Coffee House in Brighton attended by the mayor at the time, Bob Carden.

In the early days the group was led by myself and Harsha however the group has grown from strength to strength and now we all help run the group together.

Melanie Rees