Dear Friends,

My wife, Michelle and her sister, Heather, have joined forces and created "Sisters For a Cause" to raise funds and awareness for research leading to a cure for Crohn’s disease and Ulcerative Colitis.

What began as individual goals to raise money for the Crohn's and Colitis Foundation has now become a joint effort to run with Team Challenge at the Rock 'n' Roll Half Marathon in Las Vegas on December 2, 2012.  
Over the next 4 months they will pound the pavement, Michelle in Colorado Springs and Heather in Spokane, training and raising funds to find a cure for this disease that has claimed 1 in 200 Americans.

On race day, they will be running in honor of my daughters, Allyson & Emily, ages 6 and 5, respectively, who have Crohn’s disease.

Emily’s Crohn’s is very aggressive and she is currently undergoing a form of chemotherapy to hopefully get her disease under control.

Allyson’s Crohn’s has not yet activated, so her life is like a ticking time-bomb, it is only a matter of time until she faces the same painful symptoms as Emily.


Allyson and Emily, being silly as they are wont to be!!

Crohn’s disease (CD) and Ulcerative Colitis (UC) are known together as inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). CD and UC are painful, medically incurable illnesses that attack the digestive system. The cause of IBD remains unknown. However, the effectiveness of recently developed treatment methods and steady advances in research brings us closer every day to finding the cause and probable cure of CD and UC. My hope is that these funding efforts will help in finding more effective treatments that will help my daughters feel better and help them be able to live a “normal” life.

Crohn's Disease is also part of Heather's everyday life as she was diagnosed with the disease at age 12. After having major surgery at 18, and numerous drugs and tests, she is thankfully in remission. But remission isn't good enough. WE WANT A CURE!! Not only for Heather, but for Ally & Emily and the 1.4 million people it affects everyday.

Our goal is to raise $10,000 or more for the CCFA, as well as to cross the finish line together! Over 80% of every dollar we raise will directly fund the mission of CCFA, to cure Crohn’s disease and Ulcerative Colitis, and to improve the quality of life of children and adults affected by inflammatory bowel diseases.

We have made a commitment to run this half marathon and bring us 13.1 miles closer to providing hope, peace, and freedom to individuals battling IBD. We are hopeful you will join us in the fight against Crohn’s disease and Ulcerative Colitis.

You can help by visiting:
http://www.active.com/donate/rmcsLV12/CSHCrooks
and donating generously to the Crohn’s & Colitis Foundation of America.
Donations are tax deductible, and if you donate $100 or more we'll dedicate a mile in Vegas to you!

Any amount will help! Even $1 is appreciated and will make a difference in helping out kids with this disease.

Thank you for your generosity and support!

Help us find a cure for Crohn's & Colitis!!!

With gratitude and appreciation,

Colby C. Meyer
Team Member

P.S. You can follow their progress as well as get updates on fundraising and Emily's current treatment at http://sistersforacause.blogspot.com

please have requests for donations okayed by Striker

unlocked

Damn man I am currently without a job but I will try to donate something.

Crohn's is not a digestive problem, it's an autoimmune disease.

OP, that's a hard one. If a cure is found its going to be through stem cells.

Yep, and yep.

Both kids also have Celiac diease, so we already are on a very restrictive diet.

Tough seeing your kids not be able to eat cakes / cupcakes and birthday parties / school parties. They definitely get to give up part of being a kid.

Done.



My sister had UC, and it was brutal.  She finally had to have her entire colon removed.  Thankfully she lives a fairly normal life these days.


 

Thank you very much!

Its amazing the amount of people we have met who have had colons, intestines, etc... removed, and most all of them seem to be doing reasonably OK.
While not an optimal outcome, it is reassuring to see that it is not as devastating as the concept initially seems to be.

Sorry for the health issues, UC as an adult is very tough let alone a child.

I have a good friend w/this and I have poly stomach issues as well.

Not want you want to hear but weed is what keeps me going and my symptoms at bay, my good friend, who suffers terribly from UC lives on weed to get her thru the day. She runs her own scientific research company and the weed is the only thing that really makes a difference at this point. Her  weight got down in the high 80 lb range (she is 5'7)  and was able to gain about 20lbs from just smoking so..

If my daughters were suffering and they were 18 y/o I would have no prob w/them doing it.

Have you tried Humira injections?


http://www.humira.com/

I'll send something on payday. I have Celiac and UC, I am very glad I don't have Crohn's. It's just something that's always there getting in the way. I sure would love a cure, but that seems a ways off to me. As a poster said, all of these diseases are auto immune disorders. It seems that the only answer will come from stem cells or the like. Still, I hope it will happen in my lifetime.

This affected me later in life and really changed my life's direction. It may not seem like it, but it may be a blessing to get used to Celiac and UC/Crohn's growing up. Or at least that's a silver lining to having it at such a young age.

Prayers for Blessings sent for the OP and daughters.  May God Bless your family, OP.

QFT.



Crohn's put my wife out of the USMC.  Cure is not likely, better management strategies should be the focus.



She still has 2-3 flares per year, but we have avoided surgery up to this point.

I'm not so sure about that.  The more we learn about the effects of the gut microbiota on digestion and immunity, the more likely it appears that alterations/improper ratios in gut microbial populations are contributing to IBD.  We're a long way from understanding at this point, but it looks tantilizing.

I was diagnosed with Ulcerative Colitis this year. I wish your daughters luck.

My girlfriend has it and has had her colon removed.  Still has flares.

Went from Humira to Cimzia, as the Humira was causing a skin reaction.

that and little critters like pinworms



 

All thou bad you can tell your kids to look at cancer patients.
Then the cake eating won't bother them so much.

My daughter is receiving chemotherapy right now, she sees the cancer kids every other week.

Thank you for your insight.

Lets hope so, what caused you to find out you had Crohn's?

Yeah restricting what you can eat seems to help people with IBD

Insofar as it avoids aggravating the ulcers mostly.

Our daughter's Crohn's is in the muscular lining of the intestinal wall, not in the mucosal lining of the gut, so really nothing can "get" to it to aggravate it food-wise.  We are already gluten free and try to eat Paleo as much as possible.  I would agree though that for most people with more typical IBD, the food you eat largely dictates how the disease presents.

Thanks to those who have donated!  Our daughters are having a rough week medically, so our enthusiasm has been renewed to raise as much money as we can for this organization.  Anything will help, and it is tax deductible.  Thank you for your support!

I have uc so i might try to donate... but i will say talk to your doctors about fecal probiotic therapy, it's extremely experimental but holds great promise for ibd.

Posted Via AR15.Com Mobile