Today I picked up Jake from school earlier than normal so he could go get some blood work done. I was going over his day at school and asked him what he learned about today. Jake's class has been learning about slavery in America and with shock in his voice he likes to give me a daily report. Today they talked about Harriet Tubman and "the drinking gourd". Jacob went over it all in detail with me. He told me Harriet was a train engineer in the underground railroad and that she found her freedom from running away and following the north star. He even sang an old slavery song about following the drinking gourd which is the Little Dipper and North star. After going over everything with me he quieted down for a second and then in all seriousness asked me, "could Heavenly Father ever forgive the people who made black people into slaves?" We talked about forgiveness for a little while and I told him that I believe that Heavenly Father could forgive almost anything if the person was truly repentant and went through the repentance process. It is really not hard to find these teaching moments with Jacob he loves to learn new things. After sharing this story with Jeremy he reminded me of some of the words that he spoke at Jacob's blessing almost nine years ago.
Jeremy felt strongly to bless Jacob with empathy but just at that moment couldn't come up with the word 'empathy' he paused for a moment and used the synonym 'compassion' and then elaborated on it with something like, "...that he will have the ability to know what others are feeling and comfort them when needed."
We thank thee, O God, for a prophet 
We thank thee for sending the gospel 
We thank thee for every blessing 
We feel it a pleasure to serve thee 
Let me share a little something about myself with everyone out there. I HATE HATE HATE driving in any city with more than two highways. Driving is not one of my skills. I get nervous, frustrated and second guess every move I make. Driving in Dallas was no exception. The entire time I was there trying to navigate all of the MILLIONS of highways and freeways I was a mess. My poor kids probably thought I was nuts or something because any time I would start stressing or get shot off onto a wrong freeway I would tell them we were sort of lost again and to pray that mommy could find the right freeway (there were a lot of prayers on Thursday through out the day). I kept wishing I could just borrow a native Dallasonian and make them drive us to all the places we needed to get to. By the time we finished our doctor's appointment and finally found our hotel I was soooo tense that my head, neck, shoulders and arms were all very sore. It really was very pathetic. 
I kept thinking about The Amazing Race and wondered how the heck they do it. I made the very easy decision right then and there that when Emily and I go and compete on The Amazing Race she will have to do all of the driving (and eat all the gross stuff too) honestly I don't know what I will be able to contribute to the race (being on The Amazing Race is just an on going personal dream of mine we are not actually scheduled to be on... yet). 
Jacob's appointment went really well. I LOVED Jake's doctor. He was so sweet and I totally feel like I got my money's worth with him. Many a times I have left a doctor's office shaking my head as I pay my $30 co-pay thinking... wow that really doesn't seem worth it. This visit was nothing like that. The doctor spent a ton of time with Jake and I discussing the disease and going over treatment options. He was so kind to Jacob and made several comments to me that Jake seems "incredibly bright". I know Jacob is a special little boy but I love when others can see the same thing as I do. In fact when we were talking with Dr. Menter Jacob mentioned that he wants to be a doctor when he grows up. Dr. Menter told Jake that if he works hard and gets through all of the schooling he would hire Jake on with his research team and they would find a cure for psoriasis together. It was really cute. 
Basically Dr. Menter confirmed what I was already thinking when he said that Jake is beyond creams, lotions, and even UV therapy. The nature of Jacob's chronic and severe condition puts him in a category of needing systemic medication. Jake needs to treat his condition from the inside out. Unfortunately he is too young to be treated with some of the newer "biological" injections (the FDA has not approved them for the use of children with severe psoriasis yet but it should be approved this summer if all goes as planned). The doctor believes that the best treatment option for Jake is Methotrexate. Methotrexate is a chemotherapy drug that was FDA approved for treating severe psoriasis in the 1970's. Although it does have the potential for some pretty yucky side effects it has been found very successful. The doctor explained to me that Jacob's own immune system is fighting against him which is causing his skin cells to rapidly grow. This medication will greatly weaken his immune system until his skin is able to heal itself. After he is all healed up the doctor will have to find the appropriate amount of the medication to allow him to have a certain amount of a healthy immune system but suppress it enough so that it doesn't try and reject his own skin by growing skin cells too fast. We will all have to take huge precautions to keep Jake healthy. We will be doing everything we can to keep our house as healthy an environment as possible. He will need to use a mask in class once he is on the medication to try and avoid catching all the school cooties. If he does get sick then we need to immediately take him to his primary doctor and inform them that he is on this medication. Then Dr. Menter needs to decide if we take him off the medication until his body heals from whatever sickness he has caught. Jacob will need to have his blood drawn frequently to monitor all of his levels and to ensure he is still healthy enough for this treatment. He had blood work done on Thursday to get his base levels and once the doctor checks out the results he will take one test pill followed by more blood work and then after results are read he will start his full treatment. Jacob's one comment about it all was that he is excited to wear a mask at school. He is pretty sure that all of his friends will want one too. We will keep everyone updated with how it all goes. The doctor feels really confident that within six weeks he should have a huge improvement.
After the day at the clinic we went to the hotel and then went out to see the movie Horton Hears a Who. It was really cute the kids both seemed to enjoy it and I would recommend it to parents with older kids... I'm thinking five or older. Younger ones might get bored, much like the Dr. Seuss books it definitely has some life lessons in it so it's not just a funny cartoon. I think the kids liked the eating out the most. We were able to eat at a couple of places that I miss because we don't have them in Amarillo. Jake and Riley especially liked eating at Jack In The Box. They thought the toy in the kids meal was AWESOME (they each got an issue of Ranger Rick... remember that magazine??)
Jake of course has his own bed right next to Morgan's crib actually. This has become an on going problem with Jacob. He is such a snuggler he sneaks into Morgan's crib with his blanket and pillow then positions Morgan onto his pillow and under his blanket. My biggest problems with this is I'm not sure how much weight this crib can take and a couple of weeks ago Morgan woke up very angry because her big eight year old brother was squashing her. He of course slept through her cries and I had to wake him and help him out in out of her crib at one in the morning. He LOVES, LOVES, LOVES his sister Morgan so much but this has to stop. I think if I threaten to change roommates on him he might take me more seriously.
