"You Look Like You Need My Walker" Marlene's Lupus Journey to Purpose

What does it take for a Black woman to finally stop pushing through?For Marlene, it took a resident in an assisted living hallway offering her a walker.In this episode, Dr. Newman sits down with Marlene, a lupus warrior navigating five years of chronic illness -- diagnosed in the middle of COVID, while changing jobs, managing properties, and showing up to work too exhausted to hold her head up. Marlene opens up about the moment everything shifted, what no one tells you about invisible illness, and how lupus ultimately led her to her purpose.They also get into the uncomfortable truth about "Black Girl Magic" -- and why anything that pushes us to not rest isn't magic at all.In this episode:How COVID symptoms masked early lupus signsWhy being connected in healthcare made all the differenceThe real cost of the "push through" mentality on Black women's healthWhat Marlene wishes she'd known about chronic illness and relationshipsWhy healing isn't fixing -- it's sitting still"Lupus forced me to sit still. And in that stillness, I found my purpose." -- Marlene