Beauty Queen Lupie

[Guest guest]

By Carolyn Susman, Palm Beach Post Staff Writer

Monday, March 1, 2004

She's young. She's beautiful. She has lupus.

And she's in the running to become America's Next Top Model.

With her fabulous smile, her wild and crazy hair, and her sweet

disposition, no one would have guessed that 22-year-old Mercedes

Scelba-Shorte had a chronic autoimmune disease that has turned her

body against itself.

Not even another young woman who watched the show one recent Tuesday

(9 p.m. on UPN) from a New York hospital bed, battling a flare-up of

the disease that had left her vomiting violently for seven hours.

" I didn't know that she had lupus. Honestly, " says Pascale Guercague,

a 20-year-old graduate of the Dreyfoos School of the Arts in West

Palm Beach who is on a full scholarship to the Rhode Island School of

Design.

Guercague is remarkably upbeat, despite having being diagnosed with

lupus at 13.

" It's not easy. It's not something people this age have to deal with,

being confronted with issues of death. When you're 13, your issues

are more, like, nail polish. It's hard. By now I have a pretty good

handle on who I am. "

Who she is doesn't hinge on this disease that can attack men but is

mainly a disease of young women. There is no known cause or cure for

it, but the good news is that early diagnosis and treatment improve

odds of living a normal life span.

Even if that sometimes means not living a " normal " life. Guercague

has had to deal with episodes of swollen joints, hair loss, puffiness

and the characteristic butterfly rash, but she doesn't let the

disease curtail her dreams. Neither does Scelba-Shorte, and that's

why Guercague was thrilled to see her on television.

" People need to know she's not letting it rule her life. I think it's

inspiring. She looks very, very normal, and that's often the face of

lupus, " she says.

Scelba-Shorte's fellow contestants on this Tyra Banks reality show

might never have known either, had she not broken down one night on

the phone with her mom. Her hair had begun to fall out because of the

stress of the competition.

Her illness is a definite reality check.

Guercague knows that.

" I was pretty sick with joint problems, fevers, in and out of the

hospital (when she was first diagnosed), " she said. " Gradually, it

escalated. It turned into peritonitis, inflammation of the lining of

the stomach. That's not common, but that's how they nailed it. I was

in sixth grade.

" I think it's great, what she's doing. So often people with ailments

like lupus will feel as though they have to limit their life, or the

insecurities and possibilities of something happening, like the rash,

will override their aspirations. Obviously, she's not letting herself

do that. She doesn't walk it. She doesn't let it overcome her. The

most telling and the greatest thing about it is she's not letting it

stop her. "

And neither is Guercague, despite developing kidney disease at 15

because of her immune system attacking her organs.

She is majoring in textile and surface design, and she has lots of

understanding friends and a boyfriend who is attending New York

University.

" It's almost like having a secret inside you, " she says.

One that no one can now see.

People would never know to look at her that she's taking a powerful

anti-rejection drug, Cell-Cept, given only to people who have had

organ transplants.

" My body is rejecting my own organs, " she says matter-of-factly.

But she's not rejecting life.

carolyn_susman@...