For two years, author Maureen Taylor's health slowly deteriorated as she was pursued by a relentless but mysterious illness. It disfigured her face, turned her hands into claws, and left her skin as hard as a board. In 1988, she finally learned the name of the disease that was ravaging her body: scleroderma. Scleroderma was more than just a diseaseit was also Taylor's teacher. It taught her that the world of medicine is a confusing labyrinth and the only map worth using belongs to the patient. Conventional care formed the bedrock of her healing metamorphosis. But useful alternative therapiesfrom a macrobiotic diet to mildly esoteric herbal remedies to magnetic therapyproved worthy on countless occasions. Scleroderma taught Taylor to take full responsibility for her physical, emotional, and spiritual healing.

Nobody else knew her needs as well as she did. After suffering through her share of incompetent and uncaring doctors, Taylor found Dr. Hal Whitman, an astute rheumatologist.