At the age of forty-five, Donna B. Oram, MSW, ACSW, decided to return to school and earn a master's degree in social work. Halfway through, she applied for a summer job and flunked the required physical. Ten days later, she was told by a rheumatologist who remains her doctor to this day, "You have lupus."

Donna graduated with a social work degree the following year and worked twenty-four years as a hospital social worker. While she loved her job, Donna wanted more. She made a decision to take her negative feelings about lupus, change them into positive ones, and help others who also had the disease.

Donna became involved with the lupus community by volunteering and working twenty-plus years for Michigan Lupus Foundation. She used her social work training, her experience, and her positivity to help people with lupus cope. Donna is now retired and lives with her husband in a Detroit suburb. Her children and grandchildren live nearby.