Andrew

Please see Aaron’s story. Andrew and Aaron are brothers who are both dealing with IBD. Often is the case that IBD doesn’t just affect one person in a family, it’s seen in others throughout a family tree.

According to the Crohn’s and colitis foundations website: recent research suggests hereditary, genetic and environmental factors contribute to Crohn’s disease development. Studies have shown that between 5% and 20% of people with IBD have a first degree relative, such as a sibling, a parent, or even a child, who also has one of the diseases. The genetic risk with Crohn’s disease is greater than ulcerative colitis.

So, stories like the Orgel family are not all that uncommon.

The plan was to run for them both but after sharing their story and seeing what their entire family has been through with these awful diseases, I felt it necessary to run a marathon for each of them separately.

Here are a few more words from their mom, Elizabeth:

Our story started in 2009 when Aaron was diagnosed with Crohn’s disease & ulcerative colitis. He was 6 years old and it was a disease we had barely heard of. Four years later, Andrew was diagnosed with Crohn’s disease at the age of 16. As a family, we are 15 years deep as we navigate the complexities of living with inflammatory bowel disease.

These diseases have changed the course of our lives in hard and dramatic ways. We’ve had the lows of a child who missed more than half the year of school for multiple years and was constantly in/out of the hospital when this all started in first grade for Aaron, as well as the disappointment as one promising drug after another failed to work. We’ve had countless school absences and missed sporting and social events, as well as many cancelled vacations and milestone holidays spent in the hospital. On the positive side, these past few years have been good years for both Aaron and Andrew, and we continue to have hope for improved health and a cure.

It’s been 15 years since these diseases rocked our world. Aaron and Andrew are the lucky ones in that their diseases are currently under control and they are living good lives. However, that’s not the case for many and we know that at any point, their medication can stop working and things can go bad quickly: hospitalization, surgery, and pain, along with isolation and anxiety, missed school, missed work, and missed social events.

Today, millions of Americans live with Crohn’s disease or ulcerative colitis — you likely know someone affected by one of these invisible and incurable diseases. Despite this, many do not fully understand these diseases (collectively known as inflammatory bowel disease or IBD) and how they impact daily life.

It’s all about research, advocacy and awareness. A cure and better treatment options can be found … and we’re getting close. We regularly participate in Take Steps, the Crohn’s & Colitis Foundation’s largest nationwide fundraising campaign — to raise awareness and funds to accelerate the progress of breakthrough research and to support critical patient programs.

Now more than ever, it’s important to fundraise for the Crohn’s & Colitis Foundation in order to fuel critical research and awareness campaigns as well as improve patient care. The foundation’s events are also an opportunity to honor the perseverance and determination that we witness in Aaron, Andrew and the 3.1 million other Americans living with these inflammatory bowel diseases. That’s more than 1 in 100 Americans! Here’s the hard part, the current generation of medicine help some people, but not others, or not for long. Sadly, there is no cure.

Living with these diseases is hard. We hope you will donate to this cause. Your contributions will be used to fund critical research, and we believe that in this amazing era of research capabilities, a cure can be found if sufficient resources are focused on these debilitating diseases.

26.2 for the older brother, Andrew.

Marathon #77 – Recap