Izora

Hi there! My name is Izora. I was diagnosed with Morphea a little over a year ago. I had moved from Indiana to Arizona before this and on the trip, I stayed in a hotel and happened to notice a large patch on my back. At the time I thought I had been bitten by an insect and it had caused a rash. As I was only itchy and not feeling particulary ill, except for being stuck in that hotel, I didnt seek medical attention at the time. When I finally got to Arizona five days later, I noticed that it was still there. This time I took a closer look and had my fiance' look at it as well. I felt like dry dead skin and it was as thick as shoe leather. I thought well this has to have been here longer than these past five days, its just to dead not to have been. So we went thru the route of buying vitamin E and using several over the counter skin creams with no effect at all. The itching was the worst!! I would use anything (kinda ashamed to say that), I even once had a ruler specially named by my kids as my back scratcher. About a month or so later we noticed I had a couple bruises on my arm that weren't going away. I said to Mark, my fiance', that I thought that was so strange. He wouldn't admit it then but he was worried as well. He is the type of guy to try to get you to calm down by saying oh that isnt so bad, it happens. So we decided that maybe I should go to the doctor and see what's up. Before I made the appointment four more bruises popped up. They would start out as just normal looking bruises, purple and black and tender. But I couldnt remember ever hurting myself in those spots on my arms. That time I made the appointment with no fuss. Im terrified of doctors and dentists, I know its pathetic for a 28 year old woman to have be escorted but I have had a rough way to go with doctors since I was a child. Long story there wont bore you with that LOL. I went to see Mark's family doctor. He took a look at it and couldnt fiqure it out for anything. He wanted to do some tests though to rule out diabetes, thryroid problems, and such things like that. So I went through a whole battery of tests to rule these out. Everything came back ok and he was stumped. He then sent me a Dermatologist. The Dermatologist did two biopsys, one on my back and one on my arm. He then sent me home with a prescription for Atarax, which drastically brought the itching down but it also made me very drowsy at first. Two weeks later he shared the results with me. Both of the doctors that tested the biopsys came back as the one on my back was cancer and the others were morphea. My doctor disagreed and told me that he thought they all were morphea. He didnt have much to tell me on the subject but did happen to tell me it is a fatal disease. I remember crying and being in shock from being told I was going to die and blurted out "why cant I have a nice easy cancer?" He and my fiancee Mark both just stared at me at first until I explained why I felt that was easier. I felt at the time hey I can go through Chemo and get it cut out and Ill be done. But it wasnt so because i had some disease that no treatments were known to cure. And he had told me only 1 person out of every state about had this disease. Horribly misinformed I can see that now. Now im awaiting an appointment with a new doctor because my current doctor feels that he cant provide me with the care i deserve because his inexperience with the disease. Thats my story on morphea, thank you so much for reading it. Now I would like to at least tell you a little bit about myself. I am 28 years old and am engaged to a wonderful man named Mark. He has three beautiful children who I have grown to love just as much as I love their Daddy. We have a variety of animals in our family, we teasingly tell people we have the words sucker embedded on our foreheads. Among our many animals are 3 ferrets, 3 dogs, 4 cats, 10 rats and 4 snakes. Like i said SUCKER lol. We play on the computer alot, have alot of games and such we play on it against each other. We also have family game night on Wednesdays, where we play any game the kids want. They each get to pick a game to play and it starts at dinner time and usually lasts until bed time!! so much fun!! We love walking at the park and on Friday is movie night. Should see us all piled on the couch and floor. We are looking forward to adding another member of our family next year if possible. I collect porceline dolls currently and i have a tiny collection of beanie babies. We live in Phoenix and outside activities are only possible in the winter months as it gets entirely too hot outside to go to the zoo in july. We are planning a move to Indiana hopefully by the end of this year. Well I really need to go as its feeding time for all this zoo and If you would like to email me feel free, if ya wanna talk about morphea or just swap wacky kids or pet stories, I would love to hear from you. Thanks so much for reading my story. Smile it increases your Face Value :o)

To see a world in a grain of sand,
and a heaven in a wild flower.

aries46201@yahoo.com