She ela could barely walk the three steps across our clinic threshold without gasping for air. She was in her late thirties, pale, fragile, and drowning in her own lungs. Beside her, half-carrying her frame, was her husband, David, thin, exhausted, with dark hollows beneath his eyes. Eight years earlier, just after the birth of their second child, her immune system had turned on itself. The diagnosis was systemic lupus erythematosus. Within two years, it had destroyed her kidneys. “From the time we got the SLE, we would visit the government hospital clinic every month. We even made friends among other young women her age and their spouses” said David. Through the years they saw several of their SLE-sisters slowly fade away with kidney disease, go on dialysis, and ultimately die within a few years. Even before she developed kidney disease, she knew what could eventually happen. “Nothing is more horrible than waiting for the inevitable to happen to you. We would ...