Living with my son's condition (he has EGID - Eosinophilic Gastrointestinal Disease and EoE - Eosinophilic Esophagitis) is not easy. You can find out more about it by going onto the FABED (Families Affected by Eosinophilic disorders) website - www.fabed.co.uk but, to cut a very long story short, it causes the white blood cells in his gut (eosinophils) to attack the lining of his intestine and oesophagus. If unmanaged this can lead to permanent and dangerous gut damage and prevent healthy growth and development. 

Seb's condition (as is often the case with this little known illness) went undiagnosed for the first fourteen months of his life. This meant, among other things, that during this time he never really strung more than two straight hours of sleep together, such was the pain (often accompanied by hours of vomiting) he experienced through each night. Mercifully, three years on, he is in a much better place but only thanks to a carefully controlled diet, which involves total exclusion of wheat, dairy and soý in all forms, and twice daily doses of drugs to control his allergies and colitis (inflammation of the colon). He has to have monthly blood tests to check for the potentially very dangerous side effects of his drugs and also has annual scopes (colonoscopies and gastroscopies, for which he has to be put under general anaesthetic) at Great Ormond Street Children's Hospital. As you can see from the picture above with his sister Cara, he is generally a very happy little boy who puts up with his condition bravely. It cannot, however, be easy being constantly reminded of his differences to other children every time food is served in a social setting or when mummy and daddy have arguments with otherwise very reasonable people who have failed to appreciate the importance of him sticking strictly to his exclusion diet or worry openly about his slow/inconsistent weight gain, concerning readings from his blood test results etc etc. 

To put this into context, Seb's condition is actually pretty mild in comparison to many children suffering from eosinophilic disorders. In some cases they have permanently to be tube fed, such is the severity of their reaction to most food types (wheat, dairy and soy is a relatively narrow exclusion diet for eosinophilia) and many experience incontinence issues into their teenage years, a socially isolating experience at what is, even in entirely normal circumstances, a difficult and insecure stage of life. 

Anyway, what I am essentially asking is: (a) that you consider donating to what is a very good cause which offers invaluable support to children and families suffering from eosinophilic disorders; and (b) accepting that there are many other causes worth donating to out there, and that you are not a bottomless financial pit(!), that you share the message about this condition far and wide. A big part of the problem for those suffering from this condition is, in the UK at least, the near-universal public ignorance about it (I'd certainly never heard of it until Seb was diagnosed). A little more public, and medical, understanding of its associated complications and the importance of dealing with them appropriately and sensitively, and in such a way as to acknowledge that the inconvenience of the demands sometimes made by sufferers and their families are a 24/7 reality for them, would go a long way to helping.