A Mysterious Illness Turned Me Into A Vampire. My Diagnosis Was Both A Relief — And Devastating.

My son’s favorite song is “Vampire” by Olivia Rodrigo. It plays on a continuous loop in our home. I wonder if he is old enough to delight in the lore of the vampire, the figure’s sexy and mysterious violence, and the theatrical crescendos of Rodrigo’s voice: “Bloodsucker, fame fucker.”

In mid-October, he assembled a vampire costume for Halloween, replete with fangs, fake blood and a synthetic black cape that barely enveloped his 10-year-old frame.

I have a different impression of vampires now that I am one. Because of a condition called lupus, if I’m exposed to direct sunlight, even for 10 minutes, a fiery rash appears on my chest and chin, and a milder rash — call it a blush or a butterfly rash — spreads across my cheeks and nose.

The sun also causes me to turn febrile. I shiver and shake. It weakens my legs, sometimes to the point of immobility. It gives me one swollen, cyclopean eye. No wide-brimmed hat or SPF lotion can fully avert such reactions, so I retreat like a vampire into the dark lair of my home on sunny days. I have installed blinds throughout the bottom floor of the house to make the transformation complete. Call it Transylvania.

When the rashes first erupted at the beginning of last summer, I had hoped they were heat rashes, like the fiery bumps I remembered from childhood beach trips. And when the sweating began, I assumed it might be the early throes of menopause, which, at the age of 43, did not seem unimaginable.

But other symptoms followed. Pain migrated from my fingers to my elbow to my ankle to my knees. The pain was insidious, like a roving animal. My fingers hurt so much that it became difficult to hold a book or press open its spine, something I did every day as a professor.

Weeks later a fog