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...

  Scleroderma .  A hard word to pronounce.  A hard disease to live with.  The word, "Scleroderma" literally means hard skin.  It is a disease which causes excess collagen production, which then leads to hard skin in various areas of the body.  Scleroderma does not just affect the skin.  It can also affect several organs and cause fatal complications if not closely monitored.  Knowing this makes it downright terrifying to be without a rheumatologist , or a doctor of autoimmune and rheumatological diseases.  My previous rheumatologist dumped me back in December.  I had seen them for a check-in during the month of November, and they never said a word about losing the contract with my insurance company.  They didn't even bother to mention that there were contract renegotiations going on, so imagine my surprise when I got the call in December 2024 that they were no longer going to be caring for me.  I was blindsided.  To furthe...