Fifth Grade Graduation

Today my older daughter graduated from fifth grade. As I drove to the clinic afterwards for my weekly blood test, I thought about how this (almost) eleven year-old almost never was. Back a decade-and-two-years ago I was just married. I happened to be taking methotrexate. Suffice to say we feared for this honeymoon baby. My derm called the manufacturers of MTX and found that it passes through the semen and could cause birth defects in my child. He suggested we abort the child. For religious reasons we did not. My wife didn't even have an amnio for fear of endangering the pregnancy.

My daughter is as healthy as they come--tall, smart, and a great friend. My son and second daughter are also healthy children, six and five years old. None of them have psoriasis (yet) and none of them had birth defects (my wife was born with spina bifida). The genetic and pharmacological odds against us, we have three growing children.

I am a proud father who realizes that severe recalcitrant psoriasis vulgaris need not deny me of life's basic joys. Certainly there are depressing moments like waiting weeks for the new drug to "work" but it never does. But there are those moments like today when, in the midst of my psoriasis journey, I remember that I am on a greater life journey.