"Have a good time, enjoy life. Life is too short to get bogged down and discouraged. You have to keep moving, you have to keep going. Put one foot in front of the other, smile and just keep rolling."
- Kobe Bryant
When discussing his journey with psoriatic arthritis, Christian Jacobe, a 24-year-old from Camarillo, California, shared this quote from the late NBA superstar. Growing up in Southern California, Jacobe had watched the former Laker his entire life and leaned on the words of Bryant when he first started to experience unexplained back pain in late 2017.
After countless sessions with chiropractors and physical therapists, nothing was helping. Each subsequent month, Jacobe would experience pains and aches in different parts of his body, which was alarming for a young, active man. It wasn’t until March 2018, when he went in for a cortisone shot, that the source of his issues was discovered.
“Shortly after I got the shot, I started to get these strange spots and itchy irritations all over my body,” says Jacobe. “A month later, after a week in the hospital, I was diagnosed with psoriasis and psoriatic arthritis.”
The effects of the treatment, mixed with his newly diagnosed disease, hit Jacobe hard and fast, upending every facet of his life. Unable to get out of bed, he stopped working and relied on his parents to help him get through the most basic of daily tasks. He also had to wait to get insurance approval (through his parents’ insurance carrier) to start treatment, leading to a period of discomfort and uncertainty for Jacobe.
He credits his strong faith and loved ones for getting him through a dark time in his life. “Even when things got tough, I was just so grateful to be surrounded by family,” Jacobe says. He pointed to one instance when he couldn’t go downstairs to celebrate his sister’s baby shower, and his extended family and friends all came to him to provide prayers and support. It gave him the strength to carry on, he says.