About Us

This blog is changing, just as our family is changing. It was originally started to keep in touch with family and friends far away, but when you face a life altering disease EVERY aspect of your life is changed and in some way effected by it. Now I need a place to vent, to share, to help people understand the struggles that we face as a family with 2 children that are struggling with the Disease Eosinophilic Esophogitis, and with all of us having multiple food allergies. So this blog is becoming my journal so to say, an outlet for me to express my frustrations, share my joys, and put all information into one place for those that want to know. Why share something so personal, and often too hard to bare? Well...so much of this disease is silent. We work so hard to help our kids lead a normal life and no one sees the struggles faced daily, and I think it is important to let people know and understand.

What is Eosinophilc Esophigitis?

What is Eosinophilic Esophogitis? Also known as EE, or Eos, or EoE.

First let's start off by saying, there is NO CURE! There is NO FDA approved treatment. And often the only form of successful treatment are large doses of steroids and/or elimination of "trigger" foods, which sometimes as in the case of our 2 boys is an elimination of ALL foods. Forcing them to be on an Elemental Formula ONLY diet and water.

Second let's start with the layman's definition as I know how to explain it, and then I will add links with better medically explained and more in depth definitions. Eosinophils are a form of white blood cell, and in persons with this disorder these eosinophils attack food as if they are a parasite, causing damage to nearby tissue in any part of the digestive tract (in our case the Esophogus). This causes reflux that often does not respond well to reflux meds, vomiting, pain, aversions to food, rashes, diahrea, constipation, and many more symptoms like leg and joint pain, headaches. All of which these symptoms lead to more and more problems from which many you will learn about by reading my posts.

One of the bests places for accurate up to date info go to: Apfed, http://apfed.org/drupal/drupal/index.php

And of course this blog reads most current posts first, so I'll do my best to label important posts to help you catch/keep up.

Saturday, September 19, 2009

The Top of the World

A couple weeks ago I took a trip to the top of the world--the northern most point in the United States. It's a little town called Barrow, Alaska.



The latitude of Barrow is 71° 17' 26" N. The top of the continental United States is 49° N and the Arctic Circle is 66° 33' N. Needless to say, Barrow is in the North!

First I flew up there in James Brown Airlines...


Then I saw a town that I did not expect. Barrow is one of the towns spoken of often in Alaska. As such, I thought it would be a little more established. But in reality...there is not a paved street, not every house has running water, there are no street lights--just lights attached to the power lines.










I went to take pictures of a senior officer's visit there. But while I was there, I had one goal...take a dip in the Arctic Ocean.



Before I post the pictures, you must be warned...I have a body for Alaska...it doesn't see much sun.































My other souvenir I came home with was the flu. The Air Force hospital hasn't told me yet if it was H1N1 or not. I guess asking for flu test results in less than 3 weeks is asking for too much. Kaelynn teases I got the flu from the Arctic Ocean...but I don't think polar bears or walruses carry the flu.













Hi, this is Kaelynn. My husband doesn't know that I am adding this, but he asked me to look at his pictures from the Barrow trip, in them I found one random picture of some lady's mullet. It made me laugh so hard! Of course my husband is the one to take a picture of someone/something like that while he is supposed to be taking scenery pictures. Hee Hee, and I couldn't resist adding it to his post!
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4 comments:

The Lee Clan said...

Uriah...Are YOU Nuts? What on earth posesed you to jump into FREEZING COLD water? I think you got the flu from the freezing water!

September 20, 2009 at 1:21 PM
Kaelynn said...

Actually, I think I got the flu from the 400lb Alaskan native I sat next to on the flight. He was in the wrong chair, so in Fairbanks I made the flight attendant ask him to move. That's right, I threw that problem on someone else. :)

September 21, 2009 at 9:55 AM
Kaelynn said...

The mullet picture was to prove that the folks in Barrow are business in the front, but a raging party in the back!

September 21, 2009 at 10:25 AM
Maria said...

Way to go! That is sooo cool, I would have done the same thing just to say I had taken a swim in the Arctic!! What a unique experience!

September 25, 2009 at 5:53 AM

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