Learning about Crohn’s

Adam – Yes, not what we wanted to hear. We got that news, and then I think we started to do research. Okay, what is this? What is Crohn’s? A real short explanation is that there’s something wrong with your gut, leaky gut syndrome, so you eat foods and your gut, your body, can’t handle it, and it starts to make its way out of the stomach into your immune system, which is just on the other side of your stomach lining.

People who have these autoimmune issues their immune system goes into overdrive and starts to attack the body. That’s essentially what was happening to Liam. So we did a follow-up visit with the GI doc, and it was a short visit, and essentially, he recommended that Liam get on Humira.

Humira lowers your immune response, and it’s very expensive. It’s like $7,000 a month, but they’ll finance it for you; they make it affordable, but he’s on it for the rest of his life. That essentially was the doctor’s sole recommendation, and he was very forceful about his recommendation.

He was concerned about Liam being 13 and that this disease could be affecting his ability to go through puberty. So it was discouraging and introduced a new fear. I also didn’t feel like the doctor was part of our team. I had no comfort.

I feel like he had his solution and it was kind of his way, and if, and I tried to ask questions, and I felt like he tried to kind of shut you down, shut us down. I just didn’t feel good about that visit at all, and had no peace, but we really didn’t know what else to do. So we kind of went down the route.

There are some things that you have to do initially because of the medication before you can take it.

Answered Prayers

Brooke – We were just praying at the time, “Lord, give us a sign if we’re supposed to go the drug route. We want to know with absolute assurance and certainty if we should not do this, Lord, make it so clear that we will not have regrets. There will be no doubts, and it will give us a clear sign of what we should do.”

I just remember being on my face about that, and the test came back, and they were like, well, he needs to get this particular vaccination. And I was like, he’s already had that. And they said, well, it didn’t take, and I just felt like that was what we were praying for. That was the confirmation of, no, you do not want to go this route. His body can’t handle it. It’s not what I have for him. I just felt a huge peace like that was the answer from the Lord that we had been asking for, and to not vaccinate him any further because he was so sick.

Looking Into Nutrition

Adam – I don’t remember how we started thinking about food, but we were on that sort of track, but we had really no clue what we should be feeding him. We were trying to make changes on the fly.

Brooke – Christina was super helpful with that.

Adam – Yeah, maybe it’s Christina who set us on the nutrition route. So we’re headed that way. But we again felt this pressure to do something immediately, we’ve got this thought that it could be affecting puberty, which was always at the back of my mind. We needed to start doing the right thing right now, but we just lacked information. We lacked a guide, so that was definitely a prayer. I think you found Dane’s testimony.

Brooke – Yeah, in addition to all the praying that I was doing. I was looking for alternatives. Like, how else can you heal Crohn’s? Surely there has to be a solution other than medicine. I was just doing late-night searches, all-day searches, and I came across Dane, who is the owner and founder of a group called Crohn’s and Colitis Lifestyle, CCL for short.

I read his testimony and gave it to you and said, “I think maybe we should look into this program.” Everybody who’s a part of CCL has either Crohn’s or Ulcerative Colitis. It’s really like a mentoring program, like a coaching program, and they offer you a free initial call. They walk you through how to start navigating supplements and food to put your body on the right track to heal itself.

Adam – So we schedule that meeting, the initial free call to see, do we think this is a good thing? So we’re praying about that.

Brooke – It’s free. And if you know me, which many of you don’t, but some of you do, if it’s free, I’m gonna take you up on it. It can’t hurt.

Adam – And again, we needed a guide. I remember you making a meal, and putting all this effort and time and energy into it, and then Liam ate it, and he loved it. He ate a ton of it, and then he threw it all up.

Brooke – Yeah, those first three weeks were so hard.

Adam – I just feel like fear was definitely present. You know, my son is sick, and really, that word from the doctor, this could be affecting puberty. Your faith is in God. You want your son to be healed, but you feel a great weight of responsibility to figure this out.

Acts 10: Cornelius Finds a Guide

So we have this appointment, we think, based on the testimony of Dane, this looks very promising. The previous day before this call, I was in some kind of Bible study that happened to be in Acts 10. Acts 10 is about Cornelius, and it’s kind of his story, and how he and Peter have this interaction that’s spirit-driven.

It’s such a cool, crazy story, but in the middle of it, Peter is hungry, and a sheet comes down, and there are these animals, and Peter says, I can’t eat that. You know, I’m a practicing Jew. And God says, “Don’t call unclean what I call clean.” So here’s God saying you can eat this, which, of course, given that we’re trying to discern what Liam can and can’t eat, resonated with me.

It didn’t give me any particular answers, but it got my attention. But it’s Peter and Cornelius, so I’m like, Okay, Lord, you know, so there’s something on that.

The Call with Coach Laurie

The next day, we had the call, and she called your phone. It was on Brooke’s cell phone. She’s in Virginia, and her name is Laurie. Coach Laurie calls us from Virginia, and on your cell phone, on the caller ID, I think I answered it.

I looked at the caller ID and it said, Cornelius.

I don’t even know how. I couldn’t believe it.

Brooke – We went through that whole call. She’s telling us what we can expect from CCL. We give her a little background on Liam, his age, what he likes to do, activity-wise, just the kind of kid he is.

Adam – She was an athlete, a volleyball player, yeah, at that time, Liam was really big into basketball. So they had that in common.

Brooke – She just explained the program and a little bit of her journey. We were feeling really great about the call and really great about her.

Adam – She had Ulcerative Colitis, which is closely related.

Brooke – Yeah. She was doing great through diet and supplements, and had basically put her UC into remission. And at the end of the call, you said…

Adam – I don’t even remember how I broached the subject. I just told her the story. I said, I don’t know if you have a faith or not, but I just feel like that was God’s answer. And, is your dad named Cornelius? Is your husband named Cornelius? How does…I don’t understand how the caller ID says Cornelius. Can you help me understand that? And she turns out, she had a faith and she understood, but she had no clue how the caller ID could have come up as Cornelius.

Brooke – Like impossible, not her dad’s name. She’s not married. Yeah, zero. 0.0% chance of her caller ID reading Cornelius, which, by the way, let’s just go ahead and put it out there. It’s not a common name.

Adam – No, it’s not. And in retrospect, I have a lot more questions about that. I probably would have dug a lot deeper. But in the middle of that, it was just, it was like, Yes, this is it, God answered. Amen.

God Confirms Our Guide

He showed us that Laurie was the person who was gonna help us, and you don’t really ask a lot more questions other than, “Okay, what’s the next step?” We’ve got a lot to learn. We’ve got a lot to do. And thank you, thank God that you’re here to help us.

Brooke – So we walked through that process with CCL and with Lori as our coach, and she talks to Dane, and he helps make sure that all the supplements and the protocol for Liam are in place and right.

Let me just say I need to brag on our kid, because he was phenomenal. If he wasn’t supposed to eat it, he didn’t touch it. If he was supposed to take it, as far as supplements or these disgusting marshmallow root teas that are not teas, they’re disgusting. He did everything that he was asked to do because he knew that if he did it, it would make him better.

He started turning the corner quickly, and I remember at dinner one night, because he sat this across the table from me. He looked up and he said, “Mom, this is the first time I can remember feeling full in a really long time.”  As a mom, that was just so powerful and just such a reassurance from the Lord that we were on the right track.

Day by day, month by month, he continued to get better and better and stronger and stronger.

The Impact of the Healing

Adam – Four years in now, and he’s doing amazing. Here are some athletic numbers. He ran a five-minute mile in track this past spring, which I think is very, very quick, and he benched 140-145 pounds. He’s taller than me now. He’s putting on muscle. His complexion looks great.

We’ve tracked his numbers every quarter. We still do a GI Map, where there are some markers that track his gut health, and we can see that the numbers have been bumping up. He has more freedom on what he can eat, but he still eats really clean, and it’s impacted our whole family and how we think about food. How we think about our bodies and our health.

I think that God designed our bodies to eat certain things. And if we steward the land well, if we steward our animals well, if we eat the things that God intended us to eat. Our bodies are created in such an amazing way that they can repair and heal themselves. They long to heal themselves.

I just believe that, and I’ve seen that in my own life, as somebody who struggled with depression for a very long time, I’ve seen the benefits of a better diet, remarkable benefits of it, and I can look at my son and see a drastic change.

It was difficult, but I’m thankful for what God did, and I just think that that Cornelius story, to me, is one of the stories that I’ll share for the rest of my life, because we got to experience God’s providence in a very tangible way. I think that’s why we share these stories, that the kingdom of God is real.

Brooke – And God still speaks today. He speaks very loudly and very clearly, sometimes in a Cornelius on your phone, and sometimes he speaks very softly in a whisper. It’s just about being dependent upon him and really looking and listening, and being aware at all times, and asking God to walk alongside us and be our Shepherd.

Adam – God is good. So we hope that encourages you guys. We love you guys, and we’re praying for you. Let us know if you have any questions; we’d love to hear from you.

Brooke – It’s like one of our favorite subjects to talk about right now. It’s God and food, and those two things kind of go hand in hand for us. That and stewarding your bodies well.

It has definitely created a new journey for us and given us a new purpose in life, and in a weird way, on the other side of it, we can say that we’re grateful for it.

When I asked Liam if he would want to eat regular junk food and the typical teenage diet when he was healed, I asked him that the other day. I said, “If you were healed and could eat whatever, a typical teenage diet, would you eat it? And he looked at me, and he said, “I am healed.”

Love you guys, thanks for listening. If you have any questions, we’d love to talk to you.