First Crohn's and Colitis Awareness Week Begins Today

The week of December 1-7 has been designated as the very first Crohn's and Colitis Awareness Week. The Senate passed Resolution 199 in order to encourage all Americans to join in the effort to find cures for Crohn's and colitis, help raise awareness, and support research.  This a big deal at my house, as my son was diagnosed with Crohn's Disease over 12 years ago.  Crohn's and Colitis are autoimmune diseases that effect the bowel.  Twelve years ago, few people knew anything about these diseases, but now practically everyone knows someone who suffers from these diseases.  The increase in the number of people with these diseases has been immense.  It use to be a disease that the primary age at onset was between 18 and 21.  Recently there has been a spike in the number of young children being diagnosed with this life changing disease.  Many people believe that the increase in incidents of these diseases may be related to how we process our food and dairy products.  The low number of cases in underdeveloped countries supports this theory.  If your child or someone you know suffers from either of these two diseases direct them toward a couple of groups that have been life savers for my family:  the Crohn's and Colitis Foundation whose primary functions are to educate people on how to manage this disease and to raise funds for research, and Get Your Guts in Gear (GYGIG) which is an inspiring non profit organization thats primary goal is to raise awareness and build a community of people helping each other deal with the day to day living with these diseases.  GYGIG holds multi day bike rides each year in order build that community, and a large number of the riders have these diseases. The message that they are sending is that this disease is not going to beat them down. If you are more like me in thinking that people who choose to ride a 160 miles on a bike over two days have a screw or two loose, there are always crewing positions available. Crewing, camping, building community and making lifelong friends in just two days time...amazing.

Bike Safety: Why Now?

It may seem a strange time of the year to be discussing bike safety, but I am compelled to do it now for two reasons: where I live it has finally cooled down enough that this is the perfect time for biking, and many children receive bikes on Christmas morning.
When we were out biking as a family this weekend, I realized that I did not know the rules with regard to biking. Fortunately for me, the rest of my family is very familiar with the hand signals, and traffic rules for biking. They have been participating for several years now in a bike ride for Crohn’s and Colitis called Get Your Guts In Gear. This is a three day, 210 mile bike ride. I will be talking about this more in future posts because it is a very important event and community to my family since my son has Crohn’s disease, but I mention it now just to let you know why they are so familiar with the rules of biking and I’m not. I am a member of the crew for this ride. Upon returning from the family bike ride, I decided to do some research about the rules of biking. Future posts will outline what I have learned. I am also hoping that educating myself will help me become more relaxed when riding. I just started riding again last year, after not being on a bike for many years, and I took several spills at that time. Hand signaling, shifting and watching traffic has me very apprehensive, but I find bike riding a fun, family activity and want to get more comfortable at doing it. I don’t want to be left behind anymore while my family is training for the 210 mile ride. Let’s learn together.