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Crohns Campaign

Andy is a loving husband and father.  He and his family are active in their church, and also their son’s school. Andy has always loved being outdoors, camping, or working in the yard, working on projects and playing basketball with his son, and cooking with his wife.  Sadly, he is no longer able to enjoy even these simple aspects of life.  Andy has battled most of his life with Crohns disease.  He started showing signs of a problem when he was 10 years old, but was not diagnosed until he was 15.  With extreme pain, sickness, and uncontrolled weight loss, he had his first resection of his colon at age 18.  Andy’s Crohns persisted throughout the years, causing bowl blockages, stricturing of the esophagus, fistulas, intestinal abbesses, ulcers, and pain, not to mention severe depression.  Andy has been able to maintain a somewhat normal lifestyle through the majority of his disease, working and providing for his family, and enjoying many things in life until the last few years. Unfortunately, the medications for Crohns that have helped Andy the most (biologics) began to cause other secondary illnesses, such as latent tuberculosis, staph infections, and a host of other issues.  Needless to say, he had to stop the medication before the infections killed him.  

Since then, his condition has grown worse.  In the last two years he has had multiple abscesses, strictures, and fistulizations that have caused him to be hospitalized numerous times.  Fearing a never ending battle with these infections, he and his wife decide to have a second resection surgery last May, at the age 34.  The surgery relived his symptoms, but only for a couple of months. Severe pain came on and indicated another aggressive attack of Crohns.  He lost a scary amount of weight and almost all of his quality of life.  He was put on TPN (I.V. feeding), and just over 6 months after his surgery he decided to seek treatment from the Mayo Clinic.  After much testing, the doctors at the Mayo Clinic have recommended that Andy have an ileostomy due to the extreme severity of his disease.  They also believe that there is an 80% chance that the entire colon will need to be removed within 6-8 months following the ileostomy. 
Andy is in constant pain, both physically and emotionally, because of the severity of his disease, and the control that it has gained over his life.  He has never been one to let something take control of his life, but with his Crohns, he has no choice. 

As you can imaging, the financial toll this has taken on the family is tremendous, and the stress of this, and stress in general, is one of the big triggers of Andy’s disease.  He now worries if they will be able to afford to return to the Mayo Clinic for the surgeries and follow-ups.  Please help Andy and his family reduce the financial strain and burden they are experiencing and help Andy to achieve a level of health he has not known in years.  Donations will be used first for travel expenses to and from the Mayo Clinic, and to help cover some of the family’s medical expenses as they deal with this dark time in their lives.

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    Organizer

    Anna Wray
    Organizer
    Wichita, KS
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