I didn’t become a formulator because it was trendy.

I became one because I ran out of skincare options.

My health journey began in 2007 when I was pregnant with my second son. What was supposed to be a regular prenatal checkup became weeks of hospitalization.

Doctors debated the diagnosis — kidney disease with superimposed preeclampsia or preeclampsia with kidney disease. It mattered little to me at the time. Either way, my organs were struggling, my labs were tanking, and my unborn son was in danger.

Weeks later, on my husband’s 40th birthday, my blood pressure spiked dangerously high. I was immediately taken to the operating room for an emergency C-section. Maybe I should have been afraid, but all I felt was excitement about meeting my son (and busting out of the hospital).

After his arrival, doctors said that my body may have been battling inflammation due to the pregnancy and everything would probably return to normal.

Could it be that easy? Would it all just… go away?

I pushed aside any concerns and settled into the role of mom of two.

Little did I know, things would never return to “normal”…

After six months of rigorous testing (later confirmed by a field trip to Mayo Clinic) — I finally had a diagnosis: IgA nephropathy with secondary FSGS (focal segmental glomerulosclerosis).

It was a mouthful that explained everything, and nothing at all.

Over the years, I’ve endured twelve major surgeries (I call them the “dirty dozen”) — and countless hospital visits, procedures, ER runs, near-misses, recoveries, relapses, and resets.

And yet, through it all, I still put moisturizer and makeup on. Even for extended hospital stays.

It wasn’t vanity. It was armor. A ritual. A way of saying that this disease wasn’t going to change me.

For a long time, denial served me well. I raised two boys, finished my second degree, was in a PhD program studying applied sciences, and worked as an academic advisor and adjunct instructor. I had a trajectory, momentum, a path. But my kidneys had a different trajectory. Down. I fought hard to maintain normalcy (and my sense of humor), but eventually mind over matter wasn’t enough. I grew so weak that I actually felt like I was dying.