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As my son was ending his last year at University of California, Los Angeles and planning on going to medical school, his world changed, and so did mine.

He was diagnosed with Crohn’s disease in July, 2014. Suddenly, my short insouciant retirement that I had taken in 2012 came to an end. Bad things that happened to many people around me, sparing my family, came knocking on my door. My days quickly went from simple routine to hours upon hours of constant internet research to learn about this disease called Crohn’s. Before my son’s diagnosis I had only vaguely heard about Crohn’s, but I knew nothing of the terrible suffering linked to the name. Google Scholar, the Crohn’s and Colitis Foundation and Crohnsforum.com became my constant companions. I searched to understand, but I especially sought information regarding a possible cure. Every piece of research that I came across that hinted at a cure pacified me, gave me hope and helped me make it through the day. Often though, as I became excited about a treatment, disappointment would soon set in as I read further and understood that these ideas were often met with failure during the human trials.

Meanwhile my son was melting away, losing weight, in pain, unable to eat or sleep, and everything to him seemed impossible. His plans for his future, ironically to become a doctor, seemed in doubt. Fear for my son overcame me, and I felt helpless … a terrible feeling for a parent. Something inside me though, refused to accept that there was not a cure. I simply needed to research more to find it.

Eventually I found that a number of doctors in England, Australia, Canada and the US have been actively seeking a cure. Professor Hermon-Taylor from Kings College London, collaborating with Dr. Tim Bull of St. George's University of London developed a vaccine to both cure and prevent Crohn's. I had finally struck gold!

The challenging news is that the doctors need more funding to bring the vaccine to human trials. Funding for the vaccine trial with humans has been elusive, so far coming primarily from family and friends of Crohn’s sufferers.  How long it takes to make the vaccine widely available depends on how quickly the trials are funded and the results analyzed. As a mother watching her son take fistfuls of medicine daily, that day cannot come soon enough.

Therefore, I decided that I could not sit back and wait for others to find the funding to bring to trial this vaccine. Although I had never done any fundraising before, I needed to help. I needed to get this promising treatment to all of the individuals suffering from this terrible, horrible, no good, very bad disease called Crohn's.

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