Living with Scleroderma

Reflections on the Messy Complexity of Chronicity

Body

Serenity Break

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I am way over the top with too much stress in the world. I suspect you are, too. So last Friday, I was very glad to attend a meeting at a beautiful Massachusetts Audubon sanctuary. This was a gathering of people who are working on ways to mitigate climate change and engage our communities in sustainable, resilient practices, not just in our home cities and towns, but for our entire county in Central Massachusetts. Always good to get together with good-hearted, civically involved folks who are committed to improving our neck of the woods.

But the best part of the meeting was the setting. You don’t need to drive far here to get out of the city and find some beautiful scenery. And in this case, grazing sheep.

So, Dear Reader, I share with you this picture I took, to remind myself of the wonderful, calming a-h-h-h I felt, being there. Hope it gives you a window of calm, too.


Evelyn Herwitz blogs weekly about living fully with chronic disease, the inside of baseballs, turtles and frogs, J.S. Bach, the meaning of life and whatever else she happens to be thinking about at livingwithscleroderma.com. Please view Privacy Policy here.

Checking Up

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Since I’ve returned home from our trip to Germany, I’ve had a lot of doctor’s appointments. Not because I’ve had an emergency or other complications. Just because my schedule fell out this way. Every so often during the year, the appointments stack up, like planes over Logan.

So, I’ve had an echocardiogram at BMC, a follow-up with my periodontist about my tooth extraction and pending implant, a check-up with my BMC pulmonologist #1 who follows me for interstitial lung disease, a check-up with my NP gynocologist, and a meeting with my new local rheumatologist, since my previous one left the practice. Later this week I have a check-up with my BMC rheumatologist, and next week appointments with my BMC pulmonologist #2 who follows me for Type 2 pulmonary hypertension, and with my podiatrist on the South Shore who saves my feet. I have a bookmark sticky note in my planner to remember to schedule a few tests for the fall, before the next round of visits.

Then I get a break for a few months, assuming all goes well.

It’s a lot of driving and time, and it can get tedious and exhausting. This is a complex disease that involves a lot of details and coordination of care. But I’m grateful that I have an outstanding team in place here at home and an hour-or-so-depending-on-traffic-away in Boston and environs. I’ve been dealing with scleroderma and its various manifestations for more than four decades, so it’s just all part of the rhythms of my life.

I’m also grateful that our gerontology team makes house-calls.

Stay well, all.

Evelyn Herwitz blogs weekly about living fully with chronic disease, the inside of baseballs, turtles and frogs, J.S. Bach, the meaning of life and whatever else she happens to be thinking about at livingwithscleroderma.com. Please view Privacy Policy here.

Image: Kelsy Gagneben

How I Spent My Spring Vacation

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I’m back home since last Tuesday night, back on East Coast time, and nearly caught up on sleep, after an intensive 12-day journey with Al to Germany. As is my way, I packed a lot into our itinerary, based in part on more research for Novel 2, which is set in Weimar Germany, and in part on things I’ve always wondered about and wanted to visit, and in part on catching up with good friends there.

We flew direct to Frankfurt-am-Main, Germany’s financial center, and used it as a hub for day trips by train to various points of interest, including Kassel, home of the Brothers Grimm for most of their adult lives; the Rhine River Valley, speckled by castles, hillside vineyards, and lovely towns; Worms (pronounced Vorms, rhymes with forms), which was a famed center of Jewish intellectual life in the Middle Ages and is home to the oldest Jewish cemetery in Europe; and Heidelberg, a renowned university city and site of castle ruins.

From Frankfurt, we took the 4-hour high speed train to Berlin, and had a guided tour of the Schöneberg district, where my mother grew up around the corner from Albert Einstein, and the location of JFK’s famous “Ich bin ein Berliner” speech in 1963; visited a variety of spectacular museums, where we saw art by Paul Klee and Gerhardt Richter; as well as learned about life in East Berlin and under the surveillance of the Stasi secret police. We also visited a wonderful puppet museum with an extraordinary collection and curators who filled me in on some history I’d been seeking.

On top of that, we had a lovely and meaningful visit with our friends, who treated us to delicious meals and took us to another beautiful and historic Jewish cemetery, the largest in Europe. Last Monday we took the train back to Frankfurt, stayed overnight, and then flew home. I was exhausted, but it was well worth it. And that’s the very short version of our travels.

What do all these things have in common? I’m thinking a lot about German folklore and how it informed culture and society in the 1930s, as well as the heritage of German Jewish communities. I’m also thinking a lot about art and censorship, which are central to my novel. And I’ve always wondered about castles on the Rhine. Fun fact: they were built by princes who wanted to collect tolls from ships traveling up and down the river—the very definition of robber barons.

I’m still processing all that we explored. I will be thinking about this trip for a long time. Grateful we could go and return home safely. Here are just a few pics of what we saw. Enjoy!

Evelyn Herwitz blogs weekly about living fully with chronic disease, the inside of baseballs, turtles and frogs, J.S. Bach, the meaning of life and whatever else she happens to be thinking about at livingwithscleroderma.com. Please view Privacy Policy here.

Taking a Break

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I am happy to report that I got through my extraction of a resorbed tooth with no complications last Wednesday—no fun, but it’s done. So I was able to get my spring Covid shot on Friday, also without complications. My lungs have cleared from pneumonia,and I caught up a bit on rest over the weekend, along with enjoying a lovely Mother’s Day visit with my eldest in Boston. My finger ulcer heals slowly, but at least it continues to heal.

I’m also happy to report that my acting debut, a scene from The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams last Monday night, was a success. First time I’ve performed in a play since the sixth grade, and I remembered all my lines (no small feat, giving how much harder it is to remember stuff at this age, especially with scleroderma brain fog).

And so, I will be taking a few weeks off for the rest of the month, to recharge. I’ll be back on this blog in June. In the meantime, Dear Reader, I wish you good health, good medical care, and that you make the most of each moment.

Evelyn Herwitz blogs weekly about living fully with chronic disease, the inside of baseballs, turtles and frogs, J.S. Bach, the meaning of life and whatever else she happens to be thinking about at livingwithscleroderma.com. Please view Privacy Policy here.

Image: David Clode

Rough Patch

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So, what I thought was “just” allergies last week turned out to be more complicated. When our geriatrics nurse practitioner came to our home for a check-up last week, she carefully listened to my lungs and informed me that I had not developed bronchitis, as I’d thought. No, I had pneumonia.

What? That was not on my bingo card. Glad she caught it before it got even worse. I started antibiotics that afternoon, and within a few days I was starting to feel like myself again. Thank goodness, because I was getting pretty worried about where all this was headed.

Also, on Monday night I had my acting class performance—first time on stage since elementary school, a scene from Tennessee Williams’s The Glass Menagerie. We’ve been rehearsing for months, and I sure didn’t want to have to miss it. (I’m writing on Monday afternoon, so fingers crossed all goes well.)

Next on the medical agenda is a tooth extraction on Wednesday and prep for another implant. So, yet another reason I need to get past this whole respiratory episode. The tooth is definitely failing, getting more sensitive, so it really can’t wait much longer.

Then on Thursday, it’s back to the Wound Clinic to check on my slowly healing ulcer. It’s improving gradually, but needs a lot of TLC.

When all that’s done, I need to get my spring Covid vax, I hope on Friday, if all goes according to plan. We’re traveling again soon, so all this has to be wrapped up by the end of the week.

Meanwhile, Al caught whatever I had that wasn’t allergies, and is doing better but still recovering.

Of course, it could always be worse. But this has been one rough patch. Here’s hoping we’re both finally on the mend.

Evelyn Herwitz blogs weekly about living fully with chronic disease, the inside of baseballs, turtles and frogs, J.S. Bach, the meaning of life and whatever else she happens to be thinking about at livingwithscleroderma.com. Please view Privacy Policy here.

Image: Nik