Sharan Knoell Champions Doctor Who Diagnosed Her
Sharan Knoell is one of those rare vasculitis patients who got a diagnosis quickly. She has two people to thank for that.

Sharan had always been very healthy and then shortly before her 35th birthday she started feeling ill. She thought she had the flu but she kept getting worse as the week went on. Her mother, who was really concerned about her daughter’s symptoms, drove from Philadelphia to Waverly, New York, the small town where her daughter lived and worked.
Once she arrived Sharan’s mom told her “we’re going to the emergency room right now.” Sharan was admitted to the hospital but no one knew what was wrong with her. One doctor said he was 80 percent sure it was cancer, but after a bronchoscopy, he ruled out cancer but then said he had no idea what was wrong.
After a week with no diagnosis, Sharan’s mom stepped in again and insisted she go to a bigger hospital in Philadelphia. Sharan, who was on oxygen, had to be taken 200 miles by ambulance to the University of Pennsylvania Medical Center.
That’s where she met the doctor who diagnosed her. Dr. David DiBardino, a pulmonologist at the UPenn Medical Center, diagnosed her with GPA within 24 hours and started her treatment plan. She said he has stuck by her side ever since then. She said she is grateful to him for saving her life and for being there whenever she needs him.
When she was first diagnosed, Sharan had a team of seven doctors to try to figure out what was going on with her vasculitis. Today she is down to two doctors, her rheumatologist, who has told her she has a “robust form” of vasculitis, and Dr. Dave, as she calls him. She has been in remission since 2022.
Only Dr. DiBardino has been with her since her diagnosis. Her first rheumatologist stopped seeing patients to do research. Her second rheumatologist moved to California.
Dr. DiBardino was at her bedside when she was admitted to the hospital with a severe case of pneumonia after she got COVID in 2023. She was suffering from high fevers that doctors couldn’t get under control. Her constant high fevers finally stopped after 12 days when Dr. DiBardino cleaned everything out during her 15th or 16th bronchoscopy. He tracks her care and keeps in touch with her rheumatologist. When Sharan starts to feel like something’s not right, she calls “Dr. Dave.”
“He has saved my left lung multiple times,” Sharan said. Her GPA causes the connection between her airway and left lung to become inflamed, restricting the airflow into her lung. That was what brought her to the hospital when she was first diagnosed. Dr. DiBardino had to cut a new airway to save her lung the first time.
When she got pneumonia, she said he had to clean out her airway. Later he had to cut her airway a second time when she had a flare and didn’t realize what was going on because she had never had a flare.
Today, Sharan, who is the Pastor at Valley United Presbyterian Church, educates as many people as she can about vasculitis and chronic illnesses.
“I felt lost and alone when I got sick,” Sharan said. “I live in a community of 15,000 and I have never met anyone in person who has vasculitis. I want to make sure no one else feels lost or alone.”
Her church, she said, has been supportive of her throughout her diagnosis and treatment. She has given sermons while attached to oxygen, they have seen her throughout her ballooning on high-dose steroids, and they have supported her as she has taken time away for infusions and doctor visits 200 miles away.
“Having a rare disease can make you feel isolated unless you can make a connection with someone else who has lived with what you are going through,” she says. It’s one reason she belongs to social media support groups and why she tries to educate others about vasculitis.
Dr. DiBardino is the reason she makes sure to tell other patients to find a doctor who will treat you as a partner in your own care and who realizes that, though doctors go through long years in medical school and extensive training, a patient knows their body the best.