A brave father of three is using being busy as a weapon in a fight for his life against a rare, incurable disease that is gradually causing his lungs to fail. Scott Nell has a form of scleroderma, which is a progressive autoimmune condition caused by the body producing too much collagen. Alongside the condition, which is causing skin fibrosis and affecting his lungs, he also has Raynaud’s.
This means that the small blood vessels in the extremities, such as the hands and feet, are very sensitive to cold conditions and even the slightest changes in temperature. Mr Nell was diagnosed with diffuse cutaneous systemic sclerosis in March 2018 after several months of seeing medics who had no clue what was wrong. To fight the progression of the condition, he has to take 270 cancer tablets a week and undergo chemotherapy every six months.
He said: “Part of this disease is it's the immune system kind of telling the body that the skin is a foreign object and that it doesn't belong. “And it's trying to reject it. So, the suppression of my immune system and the softening of the skin [through the tablets and the chemotherapy} is kind of the way they're treating it.
” When he was first diagnosed, he was told he may have 10 years of life left, but he is determined not to let this prognosis stop him. The 48-year-old said: “I'm under palliative care now, and that's very recent. And they were describing to me how to assess how long I've got left.
“So, they were saying ‘if you're doi.
