This is basically a test post, but rather than copy/paste the standard volley of lorem ipsum dolor sit amet filler text, this test post was thrown together by the little brother of someone who suffered from Crohn's disease for years, having the quality of life torn out from under her during the prime of her life.
I was probably 14 or so when her debacle started, and I am now 25, so as you can imagine, her doctors had plenty of time to go through the entire lineup of conventional treatments with time left over to scratch their heads and try some of them again.
It didn't stop her from living her life, but it did turn out to be a tremendous ball and chain. Looking back, it says quite a bit that she flew across the country for my wedding. That would have meant very careful planning between airport bathrooms, airplane bathrooms, more public bathrooms, hotel bathrooms, church bathrooms... it must have felt a bit dehumanizing to be constrained to the toilet in this way for roughly a decade, but she endured. She always endures. That's just what she does.
The solution that finally brought her relief was somewhat out of the mainstream, and to facilitate that treatment, her physician went to the ends of the earth, so to speak, all the way to Australia, the land of the kangaroo and the wallaby, where an alternative treatment was showing results.
Sister, the aforementioned physician, and a few others are setting up this IBD TIE to encourage and empower anyone else who is enduring an inflammatory bowel disease. I suppose the old adage, "Misery loves company" applies here, but the real goal is to promote promising alternative treatment methods. No quackery, just alternatives. And hope.
Anyway, it came to be that an IBD TIE blog was in order. Because I've posted some rants in my time, Sister consulted me, was too tired to power mess with creating a blog at the end of the conversation, so I set this up, and here we are.
I hope you'll follow my sister and the rest of the IBD Treatment Information Exchange team as they venture out to encourage relief.
This is a sample comment. When people read this, they might feel compelled to log in and say things like, "Awww, you have the best brother ever."
ReplyDeleteI might feel compelled to log in and say, "Yes, I actually am quite brilliant."
However, because they will now see this comment, they might think I'm a bit too self-satisfied. They probably won't call me out on it, though, since I pretty much am the best brother ever.
Not that your other brother is a slouch, mind you.
Looks like I had to enter a captcha-thingy to prove I'm not a robot. I hope I don't have to do that every time, because then I'd have to be particularly compelled to post.
DeleteI guess that means you folks have to provide EXCELLENT content.
Yep, another captcha.
DeleteIt's annoying, but it beats having robots post about gift cards and such.
Hi Jim the Nomad,
ReplyDeleteYou just might be the best brother ever. Reading your words about your sister brought me to tears-- twice. I'm going to get my little nitwit nephew to read the blog and learn something that might be helpful to him. Right now he thinks the cure for Crohn's is extra helpings of chocolate and caffeine, preferably in extremely large quantities.
Venita
Hi Venita!
Delete"Yes I'm actually quite brilliant!" (thank you for that opportunity.)
My sister should be getting started soon. She's somewhat new to the blog concept, so I'm holding back on nagging her to write.
Good luck with your nephew!