Facing Autoimmunity Alone

Some days it's just the pain.  Today, if it weren't for the pins and needles rushing through my finger and toes, I wonder if I would know I was even awake.  Some days you just feel empty, drained, completely nonexistent.  I have no idea why.  I just know it when it happens. Last night, the arthritis in my toes kept me awake until almost 2 am.  I work at seven.  You can imagine the amount of sleep I have had.  At some point, you have to medicate yourself just to go to bed.  Which makes it worse when you try to get up and become the functional person you are required to be for the day.  Go to work, go through the motions of a capable human being, doing your job the correct way, not wanting to put your head down at your work station, and just give in to it all.  It's the hardest thing I do some days. Not giving in. Your skin is the largest organ of the human body.  And ours, as scleroderma patients, hates us.  It attacks us at...

Raynaud's Phenomenon (though I don't find it phenomenal in the least) is a condition that is defined as constriction of smaller blood vessels in response to extreme cold.  I find this definition to be slightly inaccurate.  Most people don't find holding a bottle of water "extreme cold."  Most people don't find changing out of their clothes to take a bath to be "extreme cold."  Most people don't find cutting vegetables, getting into the refrigerator, or catching a cool breeze to be "extreme cold."  But my fingers surely do.  In fact, I would go so far as to say, a more accurate definition would be, Raynaud's Phenomenon is a condition that is defined as constriction of smaller blood vessels in response to a lack of extreme heat.   There, that works for me. Some people probably think I jest; in reality, Raynaud's probably saved my life, or at least, extended it.  When I was undergoing testing to find out exactly what it was that ...