K. Victoria Gibbs worked for a hedge fund and competed in yoga competitions before receiving her lupus diagnosis — and now tells PEOPLE the condition has been a "blessing and a curse"
Taking on any chronic disease often requires a fighter's mindset — but first, it requires knowing what you're up against. For K. Victoria Gibbs, the journey to discovering what she'd be fighting for was a long one. For months she pushed through a cascade of trying symptoms without understanding their cause. Working at a hedge fund and commuting between Long Island and New York City, she was familiar to feeling fatigued. But eventually the symptoms stacked up, and the extreme exhaustion, fluid retention, and brain fog could no longer be ignored. By the summer of 2016 she had her answer: lupus.
A series of significant challenges ensued, including open heart surgery and most recently a hip replacement. But through it all, Gibbs focused on the fight, learning how to put herself first, lean into a career that suited her new physical reality and make the most of the highs and lows she was dealt.
“I really have leaned into taking these moments of challenge and turning them into something beautiful—an opportunity for me to learn something moreabout myself and just how strong and resilient I can be,” she says. She shares her story with PEOPLE in her own words, opening up about her setbacks, her unwavering strength, and the positive mindset that drives her to keep showing up with grace.
I was diagnosed with Lupus in June of 2016, but my journey really started in January. I was in Mexico with my partner at the time, and I realized that I had a little bit of sensitivity to the sun. I had gotten my first sunburn, and I don’t sunburn very easily. After I got back, the sunburn went away, but then I started to experience extreme fatigue.
I couldn’t figure out why because nothing in my routine changed. At the time I was working at a hedge fund and commuting in and out of the city from Long Island. I’m a very big yoga practitioner, and I realized that my body was no longer sweating in the 104-degree Bikram yoga room. I’m hypermobile and a former ballet dancer so my flexibility is quite vast, but my practice started to change. Eventually my joints started to hurt, but I kept pushing through my yoga and work agendas. Things then started to progress and my body shut down.
I started to get mouth ulcers—it felt like my mouth was on fire. I couldn’t really eat anything, so I started to lose weight, but then my body started to retain fluid. I had the worst fevers that were 102, 103 degrees. I asked for time off from work and would sleep 20 hours a day. I thought I had the flu, but it never went away.
Eventually I went back to the office and started to get bad migraines and experience brain fog. My father would call me every day to check in and there were a couple of times that I didn’t recognize his voice. Still, I made no effort to see the doctor. I did my best to push through. I started to forget what floor I worked on. I would fall asleep on my train commute. I couldn’t read anything because of the brain fog, but I could see colors and I knew that my train line was blue. That was the only way I was able to make it home. I was completely out of it—but I’m also very stubborn.
I was training for a yoga competition, and I didn’t want to withdraw. I had nationals In Jackson Hole, Wyoming, and I managed to get on the flight, but it was a very traumatic experience. My fever was insane. My mouth ulcers were at their peak, I had blood blisters on my fingers, so I couldn’t use my hands, but I forced myself to compete. With my ballet background, you learn to just fight through anything and figure it out. I got on stage and had extreme sensitivity to the light. I collapsed. That was the straw that broke the camel’s back.
I went to urgent care, and they couldn’t figure it out. Finally, I went to one where someone drew some labs and she basically said that they looked insane. I finally went to New Jersey and the great team of doctors at the Princeton Medical Group. My general practitioner immediately referred me to the team’s rheumatologist and a couple of days later, I was diagnosed with lupus. In the span of about six months, my life and my body were transformed.
I got a diagnosis for something I had never even heard of. I didn’t know that lupus was a chronic illness. I didn’t know if I was going to be able to live a full life anymore. It felt very isolating because I never knew anyone with lupus and it’s not something that runs in my family, so I had no one to talk to about it.
Thanks to the care of my family and taking the time I needed, I started to go back to work full time. Slowly but surely things started to get back to normal, but I was taking heavy dose of medication every single day. I knew that wasn’t sustainable. I had a good run for a couple of years where everything was quiet. Lupus flares up with extreme stress, so I had to change my lifestyle—my social life changed, my work life changed. I had to prioritize myself in a very real way. I had never done that before.
I was at a point where I had to really listen to my body and give it exactly what it needed. I have kidney lupus, so a lot of my symptoms arise in the form of fluid retention or joint inflammation. With lupus, your body gives you all the signals—if you’re waking up extremely tired, your joints hurt, or you’re retaining fluid, you know you need more rest. I canceled plans all the time if I needed to. If I push myself too hard, I’d be the one who suffers.
I left the hedge fund in 2018. There was still the loneliness of an issue like this without having a very big community like I do now. I reverted to some uncomfortable patterns that I had worked so hard to remove from my life. I've had issues in the past with alcohol addiction and eating disorders, and I would revert to some of those patterns when I felt very alone. Those moments led me back to big flares. My family had a sit-down conversation with me and said, “We will support you wholeheartedly, but we can’t navigate alcohol plus lupus.”
Out of a need for structure, I joined my yoga school’s teacher training. It completely transformed my life. I felt like I had a place. I felt like I belonged, and I felt like maybe teaching could be for me. It was also nothing my parents necessarily were excited about; they're like, "we didn't send you to Dartmouth to go do yoga full time." But I was at a point in my life where I needed to put myself first. I did a lot to please everyone around me, and it was time for me to please myself because I didn't want to go down any more dark rabbit holes.
I leaned into yoga, started teaching, and my body felt great. I was meditating every day and found peace and calm that my body really needed. I started working with Alo Yoga as one of their campaign models so that was a beautiful thing where I felt very accepted and just happy, to be honest. And the lupus was quiet. I spent time in California from 2020 to 2022, and I realized how much my body craves that peaceful environment. I learned how to manage my health, my expectations, and my commitments. I took the initiative to reach out to the lupus community in Los Angeles, and I joined their patient advocacy panel, which has been beneficial to me. Every year I learn something new; I didn’t realize that throughout all of this, so much is happening on the inside of my body.
Doctors don’t articulate that organ damage is very possible for people with lupus. In January 2023, my body was retaining fluid at a crazy rate. I went to bed one day completely normal and the next morning I woke up about 10 pounds heavier. At my peak, I had gained 35 pounds of fluid. My nephrologist encouraged me to get a CT scan. Even though the technician couldn’t say anything, he had a look in his eyes, and I just had a bad feeling.
I got a call from my nephrologist, and he had a cardiologist on the phone to tell me the news. In May of 2023, I needed to have emergency open heart surgery. I had a tear in my ascending aorta and an aneurysm that was ready to rupture. I cried for a little bit. I lived with my brother, and he came home to be with me as did my parents. I realized that it was something that was going to save my life, it was nothing to fight. It was an opportunity to start fresh and have basically somewhat of a brand-new heart.
I came out of the surgery pretty well. I had never seen so many IVs in my life, and I was intubated and uncomfortable but honestly grateful to be alive. I had to rebuild all over again and learn to walk. I just took it slow and made sure that I kept a balanced mindset and stayed positive. The doctors were shocked to see that I was moving as well as I was and that I was back to my yoga practice quickly. I always do a great job of defying the odds, according to them.
Having a positive mindset and my yoga practice has really given me a great foundation to enter a lot of these procedures and come out successfully. I started teaching yoga again in 2024. I share my condition with my community, because I think sometimes people forget that I have lupus; it doesn’t look like I am sick unless I have a big flare up.
Things really picked up and I felt I was coming into my own. But my hip flexor wasn’t cooperating, so I got an x-ray. I had avascular necrosis in both hips. I was devastated. I didn’t want to have to go through another setback. I got the news in May again; the month of the year I seem to get all my information. May also happens to be lupus awareness month so maybe it's synchronicity. I ended up having a full hip replacement on my right side and will have to do the left at some point. It feels so much better. I feel like I have my life back again. I can do my practice and move freely without any pain and my surgeon was amazing.
Now, my practice is almost completely back to normal. It was another challenge that actually turned into a beautiful thing for me and another opportunity to share. I realized that a lot of people are going through hip replacement, not necessarily because of avascular necrosis, but just in general, and so sharing my story has been really wonderful. I've given people hope and inspiration to realize that they can make a full recovery and get back to their normal life. But I am hoping for a little bit of a break after this.
I kind of think a lot of this stuff happens to me because the universe knows I'm going to do the right thing and help people. A lot of times people are really uncomfortable in the uncomfortable. It’s important to just kind of pull back the barrier and allow yourself to feel those uncomfortable moments and know that this too shall pass.
I've met a lot of people who still don't know anything about lupus. It brought up a lot of questions about what my future looks like as far as family life and if I will find a partner who can handle this because it's not rainbows and roses every day. Some days I don't want to get out of bed and some days I feel great. It's very unpredictable. Having to sit with those things while I see my friends moving on with their husbands, building their lives, having their babies — and here I am navigating fluid retention and chronic joint pain—it humbles you and puts things in perspective. My health is my priority first and foremost before anything else.
If everything else comes, great. And if it doesn't, that's okay too. I've learned to make peace with a lot of things. I think I can, at the very least, use my story to help inspire and motivate other people. I call lupus my superpower. It’s been a blessing and a curse in so many ways because I had to make these life changes, but I also think that those changes have inevitably made me a better and stronger person.
With lupus, anything is possible so I kind of just listen and tread cautiously. I take it step by step, breath by breath. I try not to overwhelm myself by looking at the big picture too much. Overall, I feel really great and you know, lupus will never slow me down. Part of what makes me feel good is to keep showing up. Even if I can’t show up at 100%, I can at least show up. Lupus is just going to be the thing that makes me stronger and wiser. My superpower continues.
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