Living with Scleroderma

Reflections on the Messy Complexity of Chronicity

body-mind balance

Six-Oh!

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It’s official. I’m now in my seventh decade. Last Friday was my birthday, the big 6-0.

hydrangeasI’ve actually been looking forward to this milestone. First of all, 60 doesn’t seem nearly as old as it once did. Funny how that works—when you finally get here, the view is longer, deeper, more nuanced, not the caricature of feebleness that I envisioned when I was young. (Of course, my twenty-something daughters have had a field day, teasing me about senior moments. Mostly, I’ve laughed.)

Second of all, 60 feels like an accomplishment. I’ve been living with scleroderma for more than half my years, now. It is certainly wearing, exhausting and painful at times, frustrating, angering to feel gradually more limited in how much I can do with my hands or accomplish in a day. Each year brings new medical challenges.

But I’ve beat the odds on longevity and developed strong coping skills and plenty of resilience. I may have achieved this, anyway, with age, but I believe this complex disease has also taught me a lot about patience and persistence that I might not have learned otherwise. For a 60-year-old with scleroderma, I’m doing damn well, thank you very much, and I intend to do my best to keep it that way, whatever this disease throws my way.

So, I was looking forward to a celebratory day off on Friday, devoted to art—my own fiction writing and a trip to the Worcester Art Museum.

My body, however, had other ideas. Thursday afternoon, on my way home from a routine check-up with my Boston Medical rheumatologist, my joints began aching and I was flashing hot and cold in the car. My stomach had been irritated all day, from, I assumed, too much matzo for Passover.

I ascribed the joint pain to skipping my Ibuprofen due to the irritated stomach. After a light meal, I felt a bit better. That is, until evening, when I was dozing on the couch and suddenly felt like I was going to pass out. Thankfully, Al was home to help.

And that is why I spent my birthday flat on my back, sipping only water, trying to let my GI tract heal from what was by then, obviously, a virus. This was not the day I had planned.

I was determined, however, not to let a most unwelcome stomach virus ruin everything. So I wrote on my laptop and finished revising a short story that had been languishing for more than a year. That, plus greetings and gifts from family and friends, two beautiful hydrangeas that Al had brought home the night before and a cuddly stuffed turtle that he gave me that evening (nothing like being babied when you’re feeling crummy) helped to salvage the day.

I’m writing on Sunday, sitting at my desk again, able to eat very bland foods, looking forward to joining a group of good friends for dinner tonight as we begin the last two days of the Passover holiday. The art museum is closed for Easter Sunday, so I’ll postpone that visit a bit longer, keep it as something to look forward to. In May, Al and I will celebrate my birthday with a weekend in Manhattan.

Much as I wish it had all gone differently, somehow, it seems, this is what 60 is all about—taking the imperfections in stride, making the most of each day, whatever your state of health, appreciating the love of family and friends. And, for me, making art. Time to get over the fear-of-rejection hurdle and start sending out those short stories for publication.

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.

Jet Lag

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Nothing like travel to broaden your horizons and challenge your equanimity.

Glad to be back home from an excellent business trip to Chicago last week. Great meetings with a wonderful client, much learned, and a fascinating project ahead. In the process, I caught up with old friends not seen in decades, ate some fine meals and visited the magnificent Art Institute of Chicago.

All my preparations for carry-on luggage paid off, and I even lucked out twice with the fast lane TSA check-in, so I didn’t have to remove shoes, pull out my 3-1-1 bag or my computer when I went through security.

But, of course, there were complications. Miraculously, I did not get an infection in any of my finger ulcers. Instead, despite all my best efforts at hand hygiene, I woke up Wednesday morning with conjunctivitis in my right eye. I have not had this since my daughters were young. I couldn’t believe it. Conjunctivitis. Really?

Fortunately, a physician on my client’s leadership team was able to prescribe eye drops, saving me a major hassle and a visit to the ER. My eyes are still healing five days later, but the business trip was saved.

Then came the trip home.

Friday morning, I arrived at O’Hare with plenty of time to eat breakfast, find my gate and relax before departure. Our United Airlines jet arrived 15 minutes before our scheduled Noon departure, so our boarding was slightly delayed, but I wasn’t too concerned, since it was a non-stop flight.

The plane was too small for most people’s carry-on bags, so I and others were given green tags to load out bags onto the plane and receive them at the gate in Boston. However, I failed to realize that I should have taken the perforated stub off the tag, in case I had issues with claiming my bag. I will not make this mistake again.

We settled into our seats. I noticed the leather was worn and wondered about the age of the plane. This proved prescient.

At least 20 minutes passed. The pilot announced that we had an issue with auxiliary power, they were dealing with it, and we’d be on our way shortly. I tried not to worry. A few more minutes passed, and the plane pulled away from the gate.

We began to taxi out to the runway. Then we stopped. For a long time. I heard the engines revving and some odd noises. Then silence. Then the engines revved again. Then silence. Finally the pilot got on the loud speaker once again. This time, he informed us, there was an issue with the heat pump for the left engine. We had to head back to the gate for a mechanical check-up

So back we taxied. Another wait, this time for an open gate and a ground crew to guide us in. “They weren’t expecting us,” the pilot explained. I guess not. My seat mate and I began to crack jokes about what else could go wrong, like a sudden severe thunderstorm. We discovered a shared concern for climate change and a love of Jon Stewart.

At first, the flight crew wanted to keep us on the plane. But the engine problem was apparently more complicated than expected. So after another half hour or so, they decided to let us off the plane while the mechanics took a closer look. “Please stay near the gate for any updates,” the crew told us.

Now, that’s all fine and good, but several problems became immediately apparent. For one thing, I could not take my wonderful carry-on bag off the plane because it was in the cargo section, and I had not taken the stub from my green tag. So there was no option to get on another flight without getting my bag back.

For another, the staff at the gate had no information about alternative flights. “You can go talk to Customer Service,” we were told. Only one issue—we were at Gate B22, at the far end of the United Airlines terminal, and Customer Service was literally about a half-mile walk away.

So, how does one stay at the gate for updates and simultaneously find out about flight alternatives without cloning oneself? (I had tried unsuccessfully to download the United app.) As I pondered this, I decided to make a trip to the ladies room. While turning around to pick up my purse in the stall, I missed a metal shelf sticking out from the wall. Wham! Banged my forehead. It hurt. In fact, it hurt so much that I wondered if I’d just given myself a mild concussion. In the bathroom mirror, I saw a fat goose-egg on my forehead, with a throbbing vein in the middle, though no blood.

At this point, I almost lost it. How was I ever going to get home? What if I really had a concussion? I needed ice. Trying to slow my breathing, I spent a ridiculous amount of money for a chilled bottle of water, which I then pressed to my forehead as I sat at the crowded gate, feeling conspicuous. Though, of course, everyone was too absorbed in their own travel woes or cell phones to notice or care.

Nothing to do but wait it out, I decided. This was going to be a long trip home, but I’d get there, eventually.

Next announcement: There would be an update at 2:00 p.m. Enough time to find Customer Service. Long walk, more waiting. While in line, I recognized a fellow passenger and commiserated. She, it turned out, was on her way to be a bridesmaid in a childhood friend’s wedding in Cambridge at 7:00 p.m. Her dress was in her carry-on, which, like mine, had been green-tagged. As we sorted out our alternatives with the customer service reps, we learned that our flight was going to be switched to a new plane. Hurray! Hope springs eternal.

Back at B22, we soon boarded our new and improved plane. Where it came from, we did not know, but the seats looked newer, a good sign. All our luggage was switched, everyone was accounted for, and we all fastened our seat belts, By now, it was about 2:30 p.m., two-and-a-half hours after we were supposed to leave. A reasonable person would expect to taxi out right away. But there was one hitch: The plane needed fuel.

So we waited some more. I learned a lot about my seat mate’s law firm and some fascinating cases. She was still hoping to meet a friend in Boston and ride out to Northampton for a 7:00 p.m. engagement—but timing was getting pretty tight.

By 3:30 p.m., we were all starting to wonder what was going on. Finally the flight crew got on the speaker once again to give us more unfortunate news: The pilot and co-pilot had timed out and could not fly anymore that day. We were now awaiting assignment of a new flight crew, who would be there “momentarily.”

“Did anyone have a watch?” my seat mate asked.

At last, by 4:00 p.m. we had our new crew, and we pushed away from the gate. Soon we were cruising at 35,000 feet, riding the Jet Stream toward Boston. A-h-h-h-h. Our new pilot, who had a soothing British accent, informed us that our descent to Logan should be quick, though we might hit some turbulence.

Fortunately, he was wrong about the turbulence. But he was also wrong about Logan. Lots of Friday evening air traffic. And so, as the sun slowly sank in the west, our plane began to circle. And circle. And circle. I asked my seat mate if she’d ever seen the classic Twilight Zone episode, “The Odyssey of Flight 33,” in which a jet mysteriously travels back in time, never to return to the right era.

Our United Flight 3791 time warp lasted until 7:00 p.m., when we finally arrived at Logan. I bade my seat mate farewell (her friend had booked a hotel room in Boston and they were going out for a good meal and stiff drinks). While collecting my green-tagged bag, I caught up with the bridesmaid, whose parents were picking her up and bringing her to the wedding, where hors d’oeuvres were just being served, so she was still going to make the ceremony.

Within another 45 minutes, I was in my car, driving west on the Mass Pike. I’d missed rush hour. The highway was dry from rain earlier in the day. My forehead swelling had receded. Hugs and a delayed Shabbat dinner awaited me.

Yes. Very glad to be back home.

Photo Credit: By Maarten Visser from Capelle aan den IJssel, Nederland (srapyard 01  Uploaded by russavia) [CC-BY-SA-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

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

Hair Wars

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In the Department of Little Nuisances, I find myself in an ongoing battle with stray hairs. This may seem ridiculous to report, but it’s one of the odd things about dealing with personal hygiene that comes along with my experience of scleroderma.

To wit, every day or so, one or more stray hairs drops from my scalp onto my face. I can feel it on my skin, but I have a devil of a time removing it with my fingers. In part, this has to do with the fact that many of my fingertips, at present, are swathed in bandages for digital ulcers, so I can’t actually sense the hair with my fingers. It also has to do with the fact that my fingertip sensitivity has declined over years of Raynaud’s, ulcers and nerve damage, so even with exposed fingers, I can’t always feel the thing.

Very annoying. And frustrating. Especially if the hair has fallen on my lips, but I can’t successfully blow it out of the way. I’ll end up wiping my face with my hands or wrists to get rid of the strand, only to have it stick to my clothes, where I can’t pick it off, either.

On days when I have a sense of humor, the whole bit feels like one of those old-fashioned slapstick comedy routines with fly paper, when no matter which way the actor moves, he gets more and more tangled up in himself. I’m imagining Buster Keaton.

But lately, this is just plain annoying, probably because the air is so dry from cold wintery temperatures and my clothes crackle with static electricity. I try to keep a lint roller handy, but the problem with lint rollers is that it’s hard to peel off the dirty layer—just another reminder of my fingertips’ inadequate pincer capability.

While I’m on a roll, here, the other issue with stray hairs involves my bandages. No matter how good a job I do every day to neatly wrap my fingers in clean dressings, within minutes, some hair from somewhere gets stuck to the edge of adhesive and becomes impossible to remove. Often, I have to resort to scissors to nip off the offending hair strand.

Now, admittedly, when dealing with a disease as complicated as scleroderma, this is a pretty minor issue. It’s not life threatening. It doesn’t keep me from doing what I need to do or love to do each day. One way or another, I manage to groom myself and not walk out of the house with a lot of stray hairs hanging all over the place.

But my hair wars are a constant, niggling reminder that there are a lot of things, even the most simple things, that this disease makes ridiculously complicated.

Our skin, the largest organ in our bodies, is an amazingly facile interface with the surrounding world—protector against infection, moderator of temperature, sensor of stimuli, transmitter of information to our brains. When our skin is damaged by scleroderma, our ways of perceiving and interacting with the world change permanently.

No easy solutions to all this. Patience, persistence, creative problem solving and a sense of humor are the best tools, I’ve found. But some days, I still get really annoyed about it all. And that’s okay, too. Anger has its place in dealing with chronic illness, as long as you don’t take it out on someone else or yourself. So I share this rant with you, dear reader, in hopes that you find a constructive way to vent your own frustrations about picayune problems of disease management. More power to us all.

And if you’re having a bad day, here’s Buster Keaton in The General, to give you a lift!

Video Credit: Internet Archive

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

Snow Squall

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Thursday night, driving home from Boston. Earlier in the afternoon, a few snow flurries, but nothing significant, just a sugar coating on sidewalks, if that. It’s quite dark, no stars visible, but traffic is light. Relaxed, I’m reviewing the day’s events as I glide west, listening to classical music on the radio.

driving_Night_snowA little topography: As you drive west from Boston on the Mass Pike, the elevation gradually rises. Years ago, when I commuted every day, I’d always marvel at how snow would often start as soon as I passed the Sheraton Tara landmark in Framingham, just because the elevation is a little higher and temperatures, a little colder. Other times, the snow line begins along Route 495, farther west.

I know every mile of this route like the back of my hand. But it can morph into alien terrain without warning when the weather shifts.

All of a sudden, out of the black, a cloud of snowflakes hurls into my windshield as I exit off 495N, onto 290W, headed to Worcester. Within minutes, I am in near white-out conditions, or whatever the equivalent is when it’s snowing like crazy and completely dark.

I slow down, but I can’t see the lane markers, because the snow is sticking to the highway, though, remarkably, not to my windshield. Ahead and around me, drivers are whizzing by. I assume they never took physics. I’m an experienced winter driver, with 12-plus years of daily, grinding commutes under my belt, including some harrowing drives home in severe snowstorms, and I don’t mess around.

But these fools don’t seem to understand—even on dry pavement, you need one car length stopping distance for every 10 mph of speed. When snow clings to untreated pavement and the road becomes slick, you need even more of a cushion. Especially on the downgrade that leads for miles before you rise again into the Worcester hills.

Swirling snowflakes refract the beam of my headlights as cars blithely pass me on the right and left. One other experienced driver a few car-lengths ahead has slowed down, also, and flips on flashers. I follow suit, reduce speed to 35 mph and try to stay in the right lane, as best I can, occasionally drifting over the rumble strip at the lane’s border, which I can only hear but not see. Red glowing taillights slip beyond into the gloom. One car or truck with flashing lights has pulled over into the emergency lane, but the snow is so intense that I don’t notice it until I’m within about 60 feet. Not a safe choice.

There is absolutely nothing to do but keep moving forward at a safe speed with adequate distance between my car and the others, as the snow keeps flying, and pray that no one spins out into me.

I bite my thumbnail. I keep breathing and tell myself not to panic, because it will not help. There is nowhere to go but forward. I realize that Beethoven’s 1st Symphony is playing on my satellite radio. There is something stable, soothing and totally ironic about this beautiful music floating in the midst of sudden, intense, relentless snow pouring out of the dark, dark night. Even as I drive, I feel suspended in time, trapped in a snow globe.

Nowhere to go but forward. I focus on the notes. I stay as far out of the way of the other cars as possible. My flashers click on-off-on-off-on-off. I mark the red-yellow-red-yellow-red-yellow taillights of my unknown friend using flashers, a silent soul mate, farther ahead in the dark, where the road curves. I keep breathing. I look for green highway markers, counting down the miles. Beethoven finishes and Corelli begins, with measured tempo.

Finally the highway bottoms out and begins the rise over Lake Quinsigamond. Tall lampposts illuminate the stretch into Worcester. I turn off my flashers. The snow eases and the lane markers become visible again. By the time I reach my exit, it’s as if nothing happened.

Nowhere to go but forward.

Photo Credit: WSDOT via Compfight cc

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

Pharmacopia

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Lately, it seems, I’m running to the vet or the pharmacy every week or so to refill a prescription.

Ginger, our 15-and-a-half-year-old Golden Retriever, needs a steady supply of her chewable, yummy, liver-flavored pills for arthritis, plus her chewable, yummy, other-flavor pills to help her cognition (I could use some of these, too, for those ever-more-frequent senior moments), and another pill for her thyroid, and another med for her arthritis (which I just discovered comes in pill form, not yummy or chewable, but considerably cheaper than the liquid version), plus a stomach acid blocker.

For me, there are about a half-dozen prescriptions to manage at any one time, one from a specialty mail-order pharmacy that requires a monthly blood test, and others that run out on a staggered schedule and require my attention every couple of weeks or so. Plus some vitamin supplements and over-the-counter meds to round out the mix.

I’m sure there’s a more efficient way to keep track of all this and probably some cheaper alternatives for Ginger that I have yet to discover.

I need to check out substitutions for some of my own meds, as well. Recently my deductible on two different scrips jumped from $25 to $50. One of these is a monthly refill. It all adds up, quickly.

Even still, I’m blessed with good medical insurance through Al’s employer (at least, that is, until we find out what the new plan will be for next year, since the hospital where he is a social worker was recently bought out, once again). One of my prescriptions would cost nearly $5,000 a month without coverage. Very sobering. I think about this every time I take one of those little pills, which I need twice a day. I try to be very careful not to drop one.

When I rise and before bed, I line up one set of pills and swallow them with water. Then, after breakfast and dinner, Ginger and I take pills together. Despite her age, she is actually very good about reminding me if I get distracted, because for her, medicine is a big treat.

Not only are the chewables yummy, but she enjoys having her other pills with a little butter, plus a scoop of low-fat ricotta and a little bread or left-over challah, to be sure the arthritis meds don’t irritate her stomach. She will start pacing back and forth to nudge me if I miss the timing, which she seems to know by the amount of daylight or lack, thereof, and where we are in our daily routine of meals.

I do not look forward to taking my meds, nor to constantly running to refill prescriptions, nor to paying for it all. It is just one of those things that needs to happen on schedule.

But I think Ginger has the right attitude. In her world, every day is an adventure to be savored.

My meds certainly help me feel a lot better than I would without them. They are a nuisance to manage, a growing expense. But I am extremely grateful to have access to the drugs I need in order to stay as healthy as possible.

Now, if they could only come in chewable, yummy flavors.

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.