Olympian Shannon Boxx's Lupus Battle Hasn't Been Easy

If this doesn't inspire you to go out and do something incredible, then all hope is lost for you.

The U.S. Women's Soccer Team beat Japan this year to get a gold medal — and revenge for 2008.

Shannon Boxx, one of our best, was just happy and proud to be playing at all, let alone winning a gold medal.

She was diagnosed with lupus in 2007 when she was 30 years old, all the while she was playing for the U.S. National Team and had begun feeling extremely fatigued; regular training sessions wrecked her.

This obviously didn't stop her.

It wasn't until April 2012 that she announced her illness, and had begun working with the Lupus Foundation of America to create awareness

Lupus produces auto-antibodies that attack and destroy healthy tissue because the immune system can't tell the difference. This can happen at ANY TIME.

Here's what she has to say about it:

Lupus is a chronic inflammatory disease that affects various parts of my body like my skin, my joints and various organs. (One symptom of lupus is the so-called "butterfly rash," across a person's cheeks and nose — similar to the shape of a butterfly.)

Sjogren's Syndrome is an autoimmune in which your body attacks your moisture-producing glands. I deal with fatigue and joint pain just like with lupus, but it also affects my skin, my eyes and my mouth. I have to regularly use eye drops, drink lots of water and get regular checkups for both my eyes and my teeth.

Keeping my inflammation down throughout my body is my biggest concern.

She continued on how it affects her and what she does:

As an elite athlete, it is my job to maintain a high fitness level, as well as sustain a strong mentality. Now add in a disease where my main symptoms are extreme fatigue and joint pain, and that standard becomes a little bit more difficult to maintain.

I am very fortunate that I have finally found a medicine that helps control my symptoms, but a few years ago that wasn't the case.

I remember in 2010 going to training sessions completely exhausted and my knees throbbing from all my joint pain. I remember willing myself through those training sessions and then getting home and lying on the couch the rest of the day.

Mentally, I was exhausted because I was trying to figure out the right medicines to use; I was dealing with side effects from those medicines and I was keeping it a secret from my teammates.

On the positive side, it has made me so much stronger as a person and as an athlete. I have the mentality that this disease is not going to beat me. I may have a bad day, but it won't stop me from trying again the next day.

Such an amazing and inspiring outlook.

We can't even begin to understand the amount of extra effort that went into all of this for her, and we'll have no idea just how sweet that gold is afterwards.

We're proud to have he as part of our team!

[Image via AP Images.]

Tags: amazing, america, athlete, body, disease, drink, fitness, foundation, health, healthy, incredible, shape, soccer, team, training, water, women, work