Rosy Cheeks

One of the things Daniel is required to do every day in school is to write ten or fifteen sentences in his journal. Yesterday he told me that his teacher let him write his journal entry on the computer. When I dropped him off at school this morning, his teacher gave me a printout of the entry. Here it is, typos and misspellings intact:

Today is Wednesday februaqry 2 2000. I'm a pok'emon Trainer I cout pichiu and odsh. picachu has elcrty power. odsh has Gras powers. then we go off to fight the team rocket. when we get ther picachu sais I doe't like you pichachu gave them a shouk take that. odsh poked them. we phut and phut but we won. then came moer we won. Then picachu went home. then odsh. then me. Next morning I took a walk. With odsh and picachu. then we ate lunsh. then played with my starwars legos. me and odsh bullt the sithinveltrder. then we had diner. Then went to bed. and dremd.

Pikachu, Oddish, and Team Rocket are all Pokémon characters, of course. I especially liked Daniel's creative spelling of "fought" and "Sith Infiltrator," one of his Star Wars Legos kits.

Daniel's teacher said that he was the only one to finish his journal entry on the computer. The other two first graders were frustrated by the keyboard, but Daniel kept plugging away. Maybe it's because he's seen me write on the computer.

I had an appointment with a dermatologist today. Over the past few years I've noticed what I believe to be symptoms of rosacea, a skin condition that sometimes affects fair-skinned folks of Northern European origin like me. It's characterized by a tendency to flush pink or even bright red. Over time, the redness can become a permanent condition, and small blood vessels beneath the skin become enlarged and visible. Occasionally, rosacea can affect the nose, causing it to become bulbous and misshapen, like that of W. C. Fields, himself a rosacea sufferer. Women are more susceptible to rosacea than men, but men are more likely to have their noses affected.

Rosacea cannot be cured, but the outbreaks can be managed or even prevented by using either topical or oral antibiotics or both and by avoiding things that cause flushing. Alcohol, spicy foods, hot drinks, sun, and wind are some common triggers.

My mother was diagnosed with rosacea eight or nine years ago. Lately I've been reading whatever I could find about the condition, and one thing I learned is that the earlier one starts treatment, the less damage will be done to the skin. I decided not to procrastinate any longer.

My dermatologist appointment was originally scheduled for last Tuesday but was canceled because of the snow storm. I was pleased to get a new appointment so quickly since it had taken me a month to get the first one.

Rita came over to watch Stephen and Matthew for me. I am used to my mother-in-law's skewed sense of time. If I had told her, as I told Rita, to come at 10:45, she would have wandered in at 11:10. Rita, bless her heart, arrived ten minutes early. So I had plenty of time to get there and fill out the new patient forms.

I didn't have to wait too long for the doctor. He was a short, round, fatherly sort of man with a mustache. I told him that I suspected rosacea because I had the same symptoms my mother has had. I took off my glasses so he could see my face better.

He touched my face gently, turning my head this way and that. He lifted my head and stroked along my jawline and then up along my cheekbones. He pulled my lower eyelid down and peered at the inner part of the lid. The man was doing his job, but it was strangely intimate. Usually, no one except Tab ever touches my face.

"Yes, you have rosacea," he confirmed. "Along the cheekbones, especially, and some on the chin. In fact, you even have a little on the eyelids."

This was news to me. I didn't know you could have rosacea on the eyelids. The dermatologist explained that this makes the eyes feel gritty and dry, which is something I have noticed but tended to blame on allergies or long hours staring at the computer screen.

He prescribed Metrolotion, a topical antibiotic, to use twice a day and talked about common triggers for flushing, most of which I already knew. Alcohol and cold, windy weather seem to be my most worst triggers. As little as one glass of wine can induce me to flush. It's one of the reasons I rarely drink. On the other hand, spicy food, which bothers many people, seems to have no effect on my skin.

I went home and studied the flawless, porcelain complexions of the twins. Good skin, like youth, is wasted on the young.

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