Nancy B. has had a lot of adventure and challenge in her life. From finding out she has psoriasis, to traveling to China on an exchange program, it's been far from dull. Take a journey through this fascinating woman's life.
All in the family
I knew my aunt had psoriasis and she was incredibly embarrassed by it. I remember watching her comb her hair, and there would be all these flakes falling from her head. I had this intuitive sense that I was going to learn a lot more about this condition as I got older. When I was in my late 20s, I noticed the same flakes in my hair, and everybody asked, "Do you have dandruff?" But I immediately knew that it was psoriasis.
A rocky road
I first noticed it when I was living in Arizona, and I had just found out that my mother's lung cancer had spread. I was 28 in 1976, when I went back to Boston to care for her for 6 months, until her death. During that time, my psoriasis spread, but I chose not to deal with it until after my mother was gone.
Within a week or two of my mother's death, I went to see a dermatologist because I felt it was finally time to deal with my psoriasis. I was given cortisone creams and tar, and I was told that I should sleep with a plastic shower cap on my head, and wear heavy-duty pajamas so I wouldn't stain my sheets. So, that was my introduction to psoriasis and its treatment. I think that doctor spent no more than 10 minutes with me, and it felt so incredibly routine. I also tried phototherapy, acupuncture, and I saw a homeopath, but nothing seemed to clear the psoriasis permanently. So, I moved on and learned to live with my psoriasis.
Living with psoriasis
I've been a teacher in an alternative program at a high school for the past 16 years. The program is for teenagers who are at risk of not graduating, because of their emotional issues. And over the years, my students have asked me about my psoriasis. I try to cover it up, but occasionally I'll wear a short-sleeved shirt, or I'll wear stockings with a skirt that comes just below my knees. Teenagers are really perceptive young folks with lots of questions. So I've always tried to answer their questions extremely honestly. I've actually found incredible sensitivity and understanding from them. Talking to my students is somewhat therapeutic, and I think it's good to educate the public, even though it's a seemingly small segment of the population.
Overseas adventure
In 2001, as part of an exchange program, I took seven American students to China for one semester. I taught at a high school in China, and supervised the students there. It was an amazing experience. But my skin was really horrible while I was there. It was interesting because I thought that the Chinese have a naturally healthy diet. I ate a lot of vegetables, no dairy, and very few sweets or chemicals, yet my skin was awful.
I was living with a host family, and when I would leave a trail of flakes, the housekeeper couldn't stand it. As soon as I would wake up in the morning and go to the bathroom, she would come and sweep up my flakes. Language was really difficult, to say the least. I spoke a little Chinese, but certainly couldn't explain that I have this condition and it's not contagious. I really wanted to say, "It's OK, I will sweep up my own flakes!"
While I was there, my host family brought me to this very high-profile doctor who prescribed all this stuff. He just kept writing and writing all these prescriptions, and I just assumed they would be herbal. I went the pharmacy, and I watched them prepare these dry herbs, and in these herbs were dried scorpions and centipedes! I just flipped out and told the family that there was no way that I was going to take it. So the housekeeper chopped all these things up and made a tea, which I drank three times a day, constantly gagging to get it down. I did this for the last 3 months I was there, with the hopes that maybe it would help. And guess what? It didn't.
But I'm not letting my psoriasis stop me. As a matter of fact, I am going back to China again, but this time with my boyfriend. I will be teaching graduate and undergraduate students, who are so eager to learn English. And, hopefully, they will be as open as my current students with asking me questions about my psoriasis.
Being open about your psoriasis
I learned that one or two percent of the world population have psoriasis. So wherever I would go, I would look at people's elbows or knees, and that would be a telltale sign. And I've had the most incredible connections with strangers from all over the world. I would stop them, show them my psoriasis, and they would be so willing to speak to me, even if they didn't speak English. Even to this day, if I'm walking on a crowded street, whether it's in a foreign or an American city, I'm always looking to see people with psoriasis.
I once asked an older man, someone I met in the Caribbean, how he dealt with his psoriasis. He said, "It doesn't hurt me, it doesn't physically tame me, so why should I let it emotionally tame me?" And that's how he handled it. He had this amazing attitude, and it really touched me that someone could transcend their condition of psoriasis.
