Tag Archives: spina bifida

Family, psoriasis

How Our Couple Story Started by Sharing Health Stories

Today Lori and I are celebrating our 27th wedding anniversary. We hoped to go to Hawaii for our 25th, but then the pandemic changed our travel plans. A couple of years later we are still waiting to take that trip. Maybe it will become a 30th anniversary trip, but I hope it won’t be that long before we go.

We first me at the end of 1992 when I was looking for a co-leader for a Bible study I led off-campus with InterVarsity Christian Fellowship at UC Davis. As I look back I’m struck by how we bonded around our health journeys and how we’ve become advocates for each other and others in the community.

I wrote the excerpt below for an Everyday Health blog about five years ago. Many of my older blogs (some dating back to 2007) have been removed in an effort to boost traffic to their website. It pained me to see hundreds of my columns removed, but I thankfully do have drafts or copies of most of them.

This particular blog focused on ways Lori and I support each other with our health challenges. It’s still true today–we are each other’s care partners and greatest champions as we daily live with chronic illness and disability.

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Family, psoriasis

To an Awesome Wife on Valentine’s Day

Lori and I visited Universal Orlando City Walk during the InterVarsity National Staff Conference in early January, 2020.

A big happy Valentine’s Day to my wife of over 25 years, Lori. I’m grateful for not just the quarter century together, but more importantly all the ways we’ve grown personally and relationally since those early days of college.

I shared about how we met on my Everyday Health The Itch to Beat Psoriasis column titled, “How Psoriasis Helped Me Meet My Wife.” An excerpt from the top of the column expresses how connecting through sharing about my psoriasis and her spina bifida led us to develop an inseparable bond:

It was love at first talk. When Lori and I met in our last year at college, we connected immediately. Sure, there was a physical attraction — and we joined the same Christian group at the University of California in Davis. But the ability to talk openly about living with chronic health conditions bonded us from day one.

We still care for each other through the health ups and downs with listening ears and helping hands. I wouldn’t have wanted to share my life with anyone else.

For this our 28th Valentine’s Day together I would like to share a short letter to my best friend:

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