My name is Yvonne. I am a 39-year-old mother of three beautiful children ages 21, 17, and 14. I can’t tell you how excited and sad I felt after finding this website. At first I thought I would just read some of the stories about mixed connective tissue disease just to see how others are dealing with this. I have never blogged my own personal tragedy to others, but I also have never felt like I do now. So here it goes… I have had to deal with this for 2 long years. I too was athletic, worked 12 hour shifts as a nurse, and loved doing things. One weekend in February 2010 my life was changing and at a rapid speed. It was my weekend to work. Normally it takes me about 5 minutes to park and walk to my floor - not this morning. It took me 25 minutes to walk to my floor. When I got to the floor all the nurses looked at me and told me how horrible I looked. Horrible! I was so short of breath, every possible joint in my body hurt, my ankles and legs looked like one (because of the … [Read more...]

A few ago months ago I was a beaming Bride-to-Be, planning day in and day out, trying to ignore the pain and swelling I was having in my hands. As the pain got worse, my fingers started changing colors, and the swelling reached a point where I couldn’t even get on my engagement ring.  I decided I should probably go see the doctor. My doctor kept saying that I probably just had a bad case of Raynaud’s (bad blood circulation to your hands and feet) but I just didn’t feel right. I was tired more than usual, losing hair, sleep, and my joints ached. My hands were excruciatingly painful, my thumb especially, it would lose all feeling, and I started getting severe tissue damage. I asked to see a specialist and my doctor finally agreed. The Rheumatologist took one look at me and knew it was more than Raynaud’s. After more blood tests than I can count, I was diagnosed with Multi Connective Tissue Disease (Scleroderma, Lupus, and Polymyositis all rolled into one disease - … [Read more...]