If you're looking for perfection, you won't find it here.

I started this blog with high expectations of myself. I expected that I would be eager to write about my life a couple of times a week, and each post would represent the very best of myself. I would show everyone that it’s easy to live a full life with a chronic illness. Maybe that was unrealistic.

Life got the best of me. The summer of 2019 was filled with fun, but it was also filled with stress. My family went on a fantastic summer vacation; a cruise to Key West, Costa Maya and Cozumel. For the first time in my life, I snorkeled. It was amazing!!

The weekend after our family vacation, Nora and I went to Austin, TX for the OCD conference. I’ll tell you more about that later, but suffice it to say, this was not the best conference I’ve ever been to.

Less than a week later, I traveled to Germany for a patient speaking opportunity.

Here’s where things get crazy. Just days after returning from Germany, my family moved across town. Also, my office at work was moved during this time. So, while these were all good things, they were still stressful. And anybody who deals with an autoimmune disease knows what stress does to the body.

Oh…and did I mentioned that my arthritis medicine, Enbrel, failed during that time?

The joint pain that I’ve experienced over the past couple of months have rivaled what I felt at the very beginning of my experience. Fortunately, I’ve learned to hide it better than I did 28 years ago. But this post isn’t about how much pain I’m in. What I prefer to tell you about is how difficult it can be to share the hard times.

My hope with this blog was to show you my real life. But, when life I got hard, I stopped sharing it with you. It was hard to articulate what was going on when I just wanted to keep that to myself.

I’m going to do better to paint a more accurate picture of life with psoriatic disease. After all, that's what this blog is all about. If you're looking for perfection, you won't find it here.