Before Steve Nickerson, a photographer at The Rocky Mountain News in Denver, began his treatments for systemic scleroderma, the illness had already sabotaged his body on multiple fronts. His skin and fingers were so severely stiffened - "tough as rhino hide," he recalled one doctor saying - that he could not tie his shoes and could barely hold his Nikon. His lungs became scarred. He became so weak that he could not climb a single step without gasping for breath. Even eating became arduous: His mouth would not open sufficiently for a normal bite. "I can tear an apple apart,...