JOKIVA BELLARD: Lupus can take a toll out of you. It can affect you when you least expect
it. I could be that girl that influences the other girls that they are beautiful.
Why can’t I be that girl?
JOKIVA BELLARD: My name is Jokiva Bellard. I am 23 years old and I found that I had lupus
when I was pretty young, when I was 17.
JOKIVA BELLARD: In the beginning it wasn’t that bad. It was just more of just a skin
rash and joint pain and then it accelerated.
JOKIVA BELLARD: My skin would peel. I would get blisters. It ended up to the point to
where I couldn’t even open my eyes, I couldn’t breathe and I told my husband, I said, ‘Babe,
I can’t breathe. I need to go to the hospital.’
JOKIVA BELLARD: I have it on my hands, you know, on my neck, all over my body really.
When my skin really started to get affected, people started looking at me. I even had someone
call me a crack head. I am going through something that I don’t understand that I feel
like the only person that could understand me is my mom.
RUBYNET BELLARD: I was diagnosed at 26 years old. I define lupus as an immune disease that
fights against you. It affects your body in many ways; it affects your kidneys, your lungs,
your heart. It really is like the cancer against your immune system that’s what I define
it as. I am finding out that I have cousins, aunts, uncles that died from this disease.
JOKIVA BELLARD: Lupus takes a toll, it can take a lot out of you. Going through my first
kidney failure.. I don’t want to get emotional.
JOKIVA BELLARD: It brings you to appreciate life way more. Way more than you ever appreciated it.
JOKIVA BELLARD: So, this was, this was actually when they diagnosed me with my second kidney
failure. My face had completely flared up.
JOKIVA BELLARD: And then I ended up as you can see this was the beginning of my skin
rash on my chest.
HOWARD RIVERS: My first impression of Jokiva was her beauty. From her eyes, her laugh,
her giggle, everything about her is just amazing. When she was first diagnosed with lupus, I
was sad; I didn’t know what lupus really was at that time.
JOKIVA BELLARD: Four years of marriage, seven years of being together, I never thought that
someone could become a best friend, companion, lovable person, everything I need in one.
The ying to my yang, the chicken wing to my thigh.
JOKIVA BELLARD: Body positivity is basically y’all loving the skin that you are in. I
get a lot of people that ask me, ‘How did you become a lupus advocate?’ and it, kind
of, wasn’t hard. The only thing that I could say is be yourself.
JOKIVA BELLARD: I could be a print model. I could be that girl that influences the other
girls that they are beautiful. Why can’t I be that girl? Why can’t I show my rash
beautifully? Why can’t I show my battle scars?
HOWARD RIVERS: I love seeing Jokiva modelling and being able to prove, ‘I am still able
to do it regardless of my situation.’ And she does it great.
JOKIVA BELLARD: I have dealt with many negative comments online. I had one that said, ‘You
should kill yourself.’ This generation, this society, this social media time, we don’t
have self-love. And that’s a problem. We are so busy putting each other down that we
forget that we need to love ourselves so we could be able to love others.
RUBYNET BELLARD: But I am going to fight it as long as I can and I am going to help my daughter
fight it as long as I can.
RUBYNET BELLARD: When we have lupus, it changes me in a better way. It made me be more kind
and more patient. Lupus lives for me but I don’t live for lupus. I don’t have to
hide who I am and hide my reflection. I can say, ‘Hey society, hey world - this is me.’