My son was born when I was approaching thirty. Paul. I still remember the exact moment — the nurses handed him to me, and I looked at his face and then down at his tiny, perfect feet. I was so overwhelmed I could have cried.
And then I pulled back slightly. Just a reflex. Because somewhere in that moment of pure joy, a thought surfaced that I didn't want to have: I can't pass this to him.
That was the moment I stopped accepting the story I'd been telling myself. I wasn't dealing with a minor inconvenience anymore. I was a father. And I was not going to let this cycle — my father's decade of treatments, my years of giving up — carry forward into my son's life.
"This time I wasn't fighting for myself. I was fighting for Paul. And that meant I couldn't afford to quit."
So I stopped looking for the easiest solution and started asking a different question: why does it always come back? The answer, once I found it, was almost obvious — and it changed everything.