An Illinois woman spent 30 days in a medically induced coma fighting for her life, but everything changed the moment she woke up.
Victoria Cupay was diagnosed with lupus, but in 2019 she reacted to a medication that caused her skin to shed and her organs to deteriorate.
She spent the month connected to tubes, a respirator and family and friends praying that she would survive.
Doctors finally began to reduce the medication that put her in a coma, and on August 19, Cupay opened her eyes to see her boyfriend Nick Baldo standing next to her bed with a diamond ring and a question to ask.
‘In fact, he asked my mother before proposing to her, because that was one of my requests long before I got sick. He respected that wish,” Cupay told DailyMail.com.
“I decided to do it then because I was on the verge of dying on many occasions. And he said that if I don’t make it, at least I’ll have a good memory.’
The couple married on August 19, 2022, exactly three years after the proposal to allow Cupay to recover and the COVID pandemic to subside.
They also welcomed a baby boy this year, Peter, something Cupay previously believed would never happen.
‘Lupus patients are prone to miscarriages, so this was a high-risk pregnancy. “We wanted it for a long time,” he said.
‘He loves playing with books and loves steaks and asparagus. It’s just a joy in life.’
She was placed in a medically induced coma but could hear the nurses.
Cupay, now 28, was a nursing student in 2016 when she was hospitalized for fever and diagnosed with lupus.
The condition occurs when the body’s immune system mistakes its tissues and organs for foreign ones and produces proteins called autoantibodies that attack them.
According to the Mayo Clinic, the disease causes inflammation and affects the joints, skin, kidneys, blood cells, brain, heart and lungs.
It is still unknown what causes lupus, but sunlight, stress, smoking, certain medications, and viruses can trigger symptoms in people who are more likely to get lupus because of their genes.
Hormones such as estrogen. Lupus is most common in women during childbearing years, when estrogen levels are highest.
There is no cure for the disease, but treatments can help reduce symptoms.
‘I went from taking no medication to taking more medication than my grandmother. It was such a big change that they told me it’s incurable,’ Cupay said.
“No one in my family has it, so I didn’t really know what my life would be like.”
She began living what she describes as a “new normal,” although her medication had side effects, including weight gain.
On August 19, Cupay opened her eyes to see her boyfriend Nick Baldo standing next to her bed with a diamond ring and a question to ask.
The couple married in 2022, three years after he proposed to her.
‘There were side comments like, ‘Oh, are you Victoria?’ You gained a lot of weight. I can barely recognize you. You look pregnant,’ Cupay said.
But in 2019, things took a turn for the worse when she was diagnosed with Stevens-Johnson syndrome and toxic epidermal necrolysis.
Both are life-threatening skin disorders caused by an overreaction of the immune system to a trigger, such as a medication, causing blistering, peeling, and rashes.
“My mom took me to the emergency room and everything went downhill,” Cupay explained.
“They put me in an ICU burn unit. I’m not technically a burn victim, but what happened to me was that I was burning from the inside out, from the inside out.
‘What was happening to my skin, it was coming off. That was also happening in my intestines and other organs.’
The couple now have a son, Peter, who loves to read and eat steak.
The couple says their baby is a “joy in life”
At the time, Baldo was living in San Francisco and the hospital where Cupay was staying was outside Chicago.
Cupay, born and raised in the Philippine province of Bohol, immigrated to Beach Park in 2011, but seven years later she was visiting California where she met Baldo at a nightclub.
She asked him to dance and he asked for her phone number.
The two met in April 2018 at a California City nightclub while she was visiting.
Cupay invited Baldo to dance and then he asked him for his phone number.
Luckily, he was from a suburb of Chicago and I planned to visit two weeks later.
The two met again after Baldo arrived in Illinois and took turns visiting each other.
But Baldo booked a one-way ticket when Cupay was admitted to the hospital.
“He knew it was going to be a very, very long trip,” she said.
Last year, Cupay graduated from the University of Arizona with a bachelor’s degree in public health.
From June 2019 to February 2020, Cupay was in and out of eight different hospital facilities and I had to learn to walk, talk, and eat again through physical and occupational therapy.
He spent 240 days in the hospital, with problems that included vomiting every day because his intestines were affected and a tracheotomy that could not heal due to malnutrition.
Baldo officially returned to Illinois during the pandemic.
‘Throughout it all, Nick was by my side. We were together during the pandemic and that was a very crucial moment in my recovery,” Cupay.
And last year, Cupay graduated from the University of Arizona with a bachelor’s degree in public health.
“It’s been a long journey, but I definitely had a lot of bad moments, moments where I wanted to give up, yeah,” he said.
“I wouldn’t have made it without my support system, I would say I wouldn’t have survived this without them.”
He shared his story on TikTok and became an instant star thanks to a marriage proposal video and a 2022 wedding video.
“I didn’t expect it to go viral, and it just snowballed from there,” Cupay said.
‘People started asking about our love story, and when it went viral, I took the opportunity to raise more awareness about lupus and what really happened to me.
‘I thought maybe this was the perfect time to get really serious about raising more awareness.