Ariel's Two Cents

 As you know, I have been working on getting all of my yearly Scleroderma tests done and taken care of.  It's not been easy for me to get these done with my extreme medical anxiety.  The most "normal" test will give me days and days of anxiety, even if I know it's going to be a simple and painless procedure.  Poor Michael doesn't know how to calm my anxiety down, so he does nothing at all, which makes it a bit worse.  At least he tries to be there for me.  That's more than some people in my life will do for me. The HRCT scan was scheduled for August 15th.  I had to reschedule it several times over the last month due to my anxiety and scheduling conflicts.  I finally got it done on that date.  It was a day that I had therapy group prior to my scheduled test.  I went to group and hardly said a word the entire time, mainly because my anxiety was through the roof.  I'm good at masking, so most people don't even know to ask me if I'm o...

 Making memories with my family has been critically important to me ever since that fateful day in 2018 where the rheumatologist told me that I was dying, slowly, but dying just the same.  I stopped living my life in some ways, but in others I have kicked it up a bit.  One way that we did that was by attending a rock concert over the weekend.  My husband got free tickets to see Buckcherry , and we took our oldest son with us.  The concert was held at Michael's place of employment, so we didn't have to go too far to make those memories.  We simply had to meet my husband after his shift ended and enjoy a family night together.  My youngest son stayed home and watched the house and the dogs for us, so I didn't have to worry about that.  (My dogs have severe separation anxiety , so I can't leave them alone for very long.)   Although I had a blast at the show, there were some moments that were very trying (and a bit triggering), but I ma...