Pointing Toward Hope
Pointing toward hope is for anyone who struggles to find hope in their trials. In each episode, we will have conversations with myself and others, to help you overcome difficulties in your life through applying the atonement of Jesus Christ. We will laugh, cry and learn together how to push through the hard times in your life, and move toward a more abundant way of living. Consider yourself invited to join me on this journey toward a more hopeful joyous life.
If you or someone you know has a trial that you have been able to get through with the help of our Savior, please contact me so we can get you on the podcast.
Pointing Toward Hope
The Unexpected Journey: Parenting a Child with Crohn's Disease
*What happens when a child faces a lifelong disease? When Kristy Ashby's nine-year-old son Austin was diagnosed with Crohn's disease, their family's world turned upside down. What began with persistent hip pain and unexplained fevers led to a diagnosis that would forever change their lives, launching them into a world of hospital stays, expensive treatments, and difficult side effects.
Austin's journey through Crohn's disease reveals extraordinary resilience and faith. At just nine years old, when well-meaning friends suggested stronger prayer might cure his condition, Austin demonstrated wisdom beyond his years: "I already know it's not going to go away, but Heavenly Father is going to make it not so hard." This profound insight from a child's perspective reminds us that sometimes faith isn't about miraculous cures but finding strength to endure challenges with grace.
Connect with Kristy on Instagram @trail.tinker.bell to learn more about supporting families dealing with Crohn's disease.
*This episode is a repost from October 2020. Austin is now 21.
Have your own story of overcoming challenges through faith? Contact Wendy at wendybertagnolli@gmail.com to share your journey of finding hope through life's difficult trials. Subject line PTH Podcast.
You're listening to Pointing Toward Hope conversations about overcoming trials and adversity through faith, hope and trust in the Lord Jesus Christ, because with God, all things are possible. I'm your host, wendy Bertinoli. We keep it real by sharing personal stories from myself and others who have overcome the various trials of life, from healthy mental tips to spiritual inspiration through our Savior Jesus Christ. We cover it all. Jump on board. Join us to move toward happiness, hope and a more joy-filled life. Hello and welcome to Pointing Toward Hope. I am your host, wendy Bertinoli, and this is Episode 5. Today I have a special guest with me.
Speaker 1:Her name is Kristy Ashby. She resides in West Jordan, utah. She's a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and she recently returned to college to receive a degree as an occupational therapist. And she earned that degree this past May and now works in school districts with children with mental and physical disabilities. And her family's world was pretty much turned upside down about seven years ago when her young son was diagnosed with Crohn's disease ago, when her young son was diagnosed with Crohn's disease. Since that time they've been involved in fundraisers and support groups and camps for kids with Crohn's. They've even been featured in local newspapers and on radio shows, they have become strong advocates for raising money and finding a cure for Crohn's disease. Welcome, christy. I am so excited that you are here with us today, and so just give us a little idea of what a day is like in the life of Christy, and maybe just a fun fact about yourself.
Speaker 2:Okay, um, I usually wake up about five o'clock and I am an avid gym goer and in the summer I'm an avid runner. So I usually get to the gym and I usually get home between six six 30, get ready for the day and my kids are getting ready for the day, my husband's getting ready for the day and I usually am at work by 7.30 or 8. And I am an occupational therapy assistant. So I work in a school district and I work with little kids and older kids that are special needs, and I do that usually till about four o'clock, 4 30, come home, make dinner, have church callings a daughter and dance a son that they're always just busy, and then we get ready for bed and start it all over again at our house.
Speaker 1:So yeah, it's pretty busy.
Speaker 2:It is pretty busy, yeah, which is good. And there's days where, like, I have a daughter that's on a mission. So we have days where she gets to call home and I get to talk to her, which is nice. And my other daughter is up at Utah State and we get to talk to her, and it's kind of nice to see her too. So something interesting about me I am a list maker. I make lists about everything and if you tell me something, I will pull out my phone and I'll be like oh, let me add this to my list. And I have a bucket list that has, like I think it's 167 things that I want to do on it before I die. But every time I hear somebody do something cool, I'm like, oh, I need to add that to my bucket list.
Speaker 1:But the question is are you marking things off of your bucket list as you're adding them?
Speaker 2:We have been trying really hard, but I add things on and sometimes then they go away. Like somebody in California put that, they did a night in the zoo where they slept over in the zoo and we got to see the animals at night and stuff. So I had that on my list and then I took it off, because they don't do that here in Utah, oh Then.
Speaker 2:I had like on a hot air balloon ride. And then I read a story about a couple that died on a hot air balloon. I'm like, good, yeah, watch the hot air balloons fill up at the festival. I, I said that counted, yeah.
Speaker 1:That's awesome. I, um, am a journal keeper and so like I have little journals all over my house. My husband thinks I'm just nuts because I have like stacks. In fact, he took a picture because I'll set them all up in the morning, I mean in the evening before I go to bed, so that in the morning they're all set up and so I can do my scripture study, my journal writing and all of that. And he was taking pictures because I have like 10 different books sitting there and I'm like I don't always read them all or write in them all. I just like to have them all there just in case, just in case. I think that's a great idea, yeah, yeah. So okay, take, take us back to um, when you were going through the process of figuring out what was going on with your son and and kind of tell our listeners a little bit about um Austin and how old he was and what was going on.
Speaker 2:Yeah, um. So we went to go to his regular yearly checkup when he was eight and his hips had been hurting and the doctor was like, um, it's probably just growing pains. And I was like, well, I have three other kids and their growing pains have like been in their feet or in their shins, not in their hips. And she's like well, we'll keep an eye on it. And then a couple of weeks later he had a fever of like it was low grade, it was 101 and it lasted for 11 days. So I take him back to the doctor and I said he now has this strange fever. Oh, we think it's the flu. I'm like, really, cause there's six people in our house and I babysit like four other kids, nobody else is sick Well, we can do some blood work. So they did some blood work and they lost or two of the samples got contaminated somehow. So it came back as he's fine. So then he started having diarrhea and at like three days of this, nothing was helping. So I take him back to the doctor and she's like oh well, let's test those other two vials of blood that got contaminated, we'll redo those. And she came back and said there's some high blood markers that indicate there's inflammation and some other things going on. So we need to get him to a GI doctor. Well, a GI doctor is like a six week waiting list and at this point he had lost 13 pounds, so he had just turned nine and he was down to 40 pounds and I said if six weeks he will die. He can't, he can't wait six weeks. So because he was still dealing with his hip pain, they got him in to see a pediatric rheumatologist, thinking maybe it was like juvenile arthritis, and she was able to diagnose him as not having that and was able to get us into the GI doctor like two days later. So they did scopes, an endoscopy and a colonoscopy, and took biopsies and they came back and said it was Crohn's disease and immediately put him on steroids and some other medication. That immediately started helping him again.
Speaker 2:But you know there's side effects to that. He got what we call moon face and he was very sensitive to smells. I just remember going to the blue and gold banquet dinner and you know he's so excited because it's like his first one and the smell of the potatoes and the ham instantly made him sick and we went out to the parking lot and he threw up all over. And here's this little nine-year-old and he says mom, is the bishop going to make me come clean this up? I'm like, no, you have to clean it up. But he was just so concerned, you know, and he's always been that way. He's just, he's very concerned about other people all the time. So it was a.
Speaker 2:It was a good six months before they got him on. It's called Remicade, which is an infusion that they do, and he was supposed to get it done every eight weeks and the average back then was 70% of kids would grow antibodies to this within 10 years. So we were like, okay, we got 10 years, you know, and by 10 years something better is going to come along. They may have a cure. Something else might be, you know, and by 10 years, something better is going to come along. They may have a cure. Something else might be, you know, work better.
Speaker 2:Um two years into it he stopped responding to it. So we had to do more tests to figure out why he'd stopped responding, and it was. He just grew antibodies against it. So now he's on um humira shots. He gives himself the shots now and it's every other week, and I mean this all started when he was nine and he's 16 now, so we just feel very blessed that they even have Humira. When he started it, it had only been FDA approved for kids for one year. When he started it, it had only been FDA approved for kids for one year. I know that we were being watched over because the treatments that he's on right now didn't exist when he first was diagnosed, and that's scary to think about, you know.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's really scary, but, like you said, but like you said, what a testament to you know having many miracles. Yeah, just as you were talking about the, you know the six week waiting list. I was thinking about that because that's kind of how it is with psychiatrists when I was trying to get in with my health and every doctor is a six week wait. Yeah, we're crazy when, when you are needing the help immediately so I can with him losing weight as fast as he was losing it, I'm sure as a mother, you were just not doing well.
Speaker 2:Well, they give you the option of you can go to the ER. In the ER, really, what they're going to do is try to get you know, give him an IV, try to get him stabilized and then they're going to refer you to a GI doctor which will take six weeks to get into.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so, looking back at that journey, how do you feel like you were being prepared before you found out what he was diagnosed with?
Speaker 2:Just little things happened that now that it's. You know, seven years ago my husband was in a master's degree program at BYU, was in a master's degree program at BYU and we've paid his very last tuition in February and I was like, oh, we don't have to pay any more checks to BYU, that's so great. And in March was when Austin started Remicade and it's like $4,000. And instead I wrote a check to primary children's and I was like they're kind of owned by the same company, I don't know. So that's kind of our joke was we stopped paying BYU, but now I pay primary children.
Speaker 1:so but what a blessing that you were already used to making that payment and you know it wasn't like you had to struggle to come up with it. You were already used to that yeah, yeah it was.
Speaker 2:You know, we just my kids, are very. They get along really, really well and and I would just say that as soon as he got sick they were like even closer, if that makes sense. So sometimes I think how would my kids be their relationships if that hadn't happened? And just like the doctor, the rheumatoid arthritis I mean the rheumatologist that got him in so quickly, just little things like that. Sean and I were actually at the temple when our pediatrician called us to tell us that she was able to get us into the rheumatologist the next day. And of course, our phones are turned off, right, and we get out and he had like seven voicemails from the doctor like you need to call me now, and voicemails from the doctor like you need to call me now. Why are you not answering your phone? Wow, it was fine.
Speaker 1:But it was just one of those moments where, like, we needed to be at the temple to be okay, because we just didn't know what was wrong with him and it was scary, it was very scary, and the temple is always a place where we can go and find comfort and peace, and even though you know that's where you were when the phone call came, it's almost like you know you needed to be there in order to get that phone call.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:I think about all that you must have went through because that was, I mean, that first two years, like you were talking about I mean to figure out what was going on and you know the different kinds of medication that I was reading on your blog and was just seeing the process of Remicade and you know how long it takes. Can you tell us a little bit about that and you know your experiences?
Speaker 2:with that. Yeah, so it's an infusion. So they you have to go to the hospital. Well, nowadays they do it at home. I guess they can send the nurse to your house and they just hook them up to an IV and it takes at least five hours for it to just slowly drip in. So we would just take movies and they would only allow one parent in at a time and they would allow a sibling as long as they were over 14. So my youngest never got to go. She was really kind of sad and they would feed them amazing food.
Speaker 2:Austin, when he was getting his Remicade his stomach felt fine. At one point when he hadn't been diagnosed yet. We made him keep track of how many times he went to the bathroom and he went 22 times in one day and my mom would call and say, what can I do for you? And I was like, can I just get a caseload of toilet paper, like for real, just send it over. When he's getting Remicade his stomach wouldn't flush everything out. So he would eat shrimp and um steak and milkshakes and he, you can just order it. You know, and I just remember this one time he's like I just want bacon, just bacon. And he calls to order, plays like well, do you want like some toast or like a bagel? Nope, just bacon. And he stopped getting his Remicade. That was the one thing he was sad about. He was like I'm not going to get it, go and have my steak and shrimp and bacon. I'm like no.
Speaker 1:So this other process that he goes through now, he still you said he still has to give himself shots.
Speaker 2:Yeah, every other Monday. Yeah, and they're just as expensive as Remicade was. Um, we are part of a prescription reimbursement plan, which really helps a lot. But if you um didn't have that, it's four thousand dollars a month, which you know. We have insurance that pays for most of it. But if you have a high deductible, then you know every year we have to pay that $4,000. And Austin means our deductible every year.
Speaker 2:So, and just part of it is it usually about every two years they make them do a colonoscopy and an endoscopy just to keep track of how things are going. Insurance companies made him have an MRI to prove that he had Crohn's. We're like, well, they did biopsies, they came back and they're like, nope, he has to do this MRI. So they have to drink barium, a ton of it, four of these cups and this. You know, this little nine-year-old, you have to just keep making a drink and drink it. And he finally gets an MRI machine and he projectile vomited inside the whole machine. They got three pictures. They had no clothes for him to go home in, so they just found some scrubs, put this little nine-year-old in scrubs and rolled him up and for halloween he wanted to be a doctor, so he just cut off the bottom of the scrubs and made into a hat and he was the doctor.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so I'm interested to hear more about his attitude through all of this, because it sounds like he just handled it all so well for just being eight, nine years old.
Speaker 2:He did. He did better than, I would say, the average kid would. He had a lot of anxiety about it. He was nervous because it would cause him to throw up or to have diarrhea and he was scared that he was going to throw up in the middle of the night and nobody would know. So, um, we took him to a therapist for a little while, just to kind of work through this chronic illness. It's never going to go away, that he's just going to have this forever, and for a little kid that's hard to process. That know, I'm always going to be sick, kind of. So, um, the therapist encouraged us to get a baby monitor and we put one in his room and one in our room and we could hear him.
Speaker 2:So if he needed something we could just, you know we'll write to him and, um, one night we heard him saying prayers, which is so cute when they don't realize you're listening, and this makes me sad. But I remember hearing him say one night, as he's praying I know I'm a good looking guy, but who's going to want to marry me when I cost so much money for medical expenses Just crying Cause I'm listening to him and my husband's like what do I do? Do I go help the kid that's crying or do I help the wife that's crying? And you know little things like that he was worried about and he was nine. Like a nine-year-old shouldn't have to worry about who's going to want to marry me because I cost a lot of money. So the therapy helped a lot, just kind of helped him, um, realize that everybody is facing some kind of challenge and his might be different than other people's, but it really helped him and he's a smart kid. We get lots of people that want to help and it's all good intentions. We would get lots of people that would send us like well, have you tried this and have you tried this? And like it was super nice and I and I loved that that they were reaching out and checking on him.
Speaker 2:But somebody once said to him. A close family friend said if you just pray hard enough, heavenly Father will take this away. And I didn't say anything. And then the friend left and I looked at Austin and I was like buddy, how did that make you feel? And he just laughed.
Speaker 2:He's like mom, I already know it's not going to go away, but Heavenly Father is going to make it not so hard.
Speaker 2:And I'm okay with that, because sometimes I think what if my sisters had to have that, have this disease? And I would much rather I have it than them. And he was nine and I was like okay, but instead of taking offense to it and being like are you saying I don't have enough faith or that I'm not praying hard enough, this nine-year-old perfect faith was like I already know it's not going to go away, but it's not going to be so bad and it's going to be all right. And I was like you're amazing. Because as the mom, I wanted to go and yell at this person and be like how dare you tell my kid that if they prayed hard enough, it would go away In some instances? I'm sure that that is what needs to happen, but he already knew that he needed to face this trial, and so, of course, my testimony grows whenever he says stuff like that. Cause I'm like you're right, I won't go yell at them.
Speaker 1:Oh my gosh, that is a beautiful story. It's incredible the faith that our children have. You know, as you grow older you're affected by so many things and it's hard to continue to have that faith. How has your faith played into this whole experience with Austin?
Speaker 2:It's been hard. When he was first diagnosed, my mom, who is one of my best friends, was just getting ready to leave on a mission and she was able to come up to the hospital with us a couple of times for some of his appointments and stuff. But then she left and was like halfway across the world, literally in India, and you start to question. You know like, did I do something wrong? Did I eat something wrong when I was pregnant with him? Did I cause this? What are the genetics like? And then you know there's those wonderful moments when you go to church and somebody gets up and bears their testimony about how they put your son's name in the temple and, without any prompting, my son got up and thanked everybody in the ward for fasting for him so he could find out what was wrong. So he could find out what was wrong, and just little things like that that you look back on and you're like, okay, we were being watched over and just knowing that so many people were fasting for him and for even for me, you know like our ward gave me a huge hug one day and talked about how her daughter had been dealing with some health issues and I had no idea and just said you know I'm, I'm with you, I've been praying for you, I've put your name in the temple because, as the mom, it's so hard to see our kids suffer and I mean I had my bad moments.
Speaker 2:He ate red jello one time and one of the big things with Crohn's is they bleed out or they can hemorrhage when they go to the bathroom. And he was in the bathroom a really long time and I was like buddy, can I come in? And he let me in and the toilet was just blood red the whole thing and I immediately called my husband. I like, do I need to take him to the ER? What? And my husband's laughing. He's like he had red jello for breakfast.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there was another day where he was getting ready for a colonoscopy and the prep for colonoscopy is not fun and for a nine-year-old it's like super not fun and he was spending pretty much the whole day on the toilet, you know, and I called the hospital and I was talking to the nurse. I'm like I can't make him finish drinking this. He is just going straight through. I can't do it. The nurse said some things to me that I didn't really like and I threw the phone across the room and Austin still to this day will be like do you remember the time you threw the phone? Because you were talking to the nurse and they didn't say nice things and I was like, oh yeah, so they remember those things too, because that's awesome.
Speaker 1:That makes me think you know it's so hard being a caregiver of someone who is sick or, you know, for parents. A lot of people take care of their parents when they're older and as a caregiver it can just be. It can be really difficult. Did you have strategies or coping mechanisms that you used during that time to deal with all of it?
Speaker 2:Yeah, they had Crohn's support groups which were really nice to go to and I don't even know so much that it was for Austin. I mean, it was supposed to be for the person that had Crohn's but apparently went and it was mostly just adults that were there and it was just really nice to be able to see other people with Crohn's that led completely normal, functional lives outside of being sick. And because of like social media, we were able to meet other people that their children had Crohn's. So that was really beneficial. There was like forums that you could, you know, talk to other people like they. You know, is this treatment working for your child? Or mine stopped responding to Remicade. What are you trying now? So those kinds of things really really helped.
Speaker 2:And I mean, we've always been a family that we try to make good memories and one of the vacations that we went on we went to Mount Rushmore and he was cause you can get in a flare, so that's just when the Crohn's is active again, and when his gets really active it kind of attacks his growth plates or his joints and he can't walk and he's also sick.
Speaker 2:But we were at Mount Rushmore and his legs hurt so bad that his sisters were carrying him up the stairs on their backs and they thought it was just this fun little thing, you know. But I have pictures of them carrying him on their back and I just remember thinking these are the kind of memories that I will remember. And, yeah, we may not have like the coolest car or, you know, have a boat or whatever, but we were able to come to these vacations and even if he wasn't feeling well, everybody did their best to make sure he could still participate. And those are the kinds of things that, like, lift your spirits of. It's totally. It's what we needed and what was worth it, you know.
Speaker 1:It's totally. It's what we needed and what was worth it, you know, and what Christlike ways to respond with, like your kids carrying him and I just think about the challenges that we go through and how the Savior carries us and I think that that had to be to see them carrying him through those times when he couldn't carry himself. You know, that must have just been so touching.
Speaker 2:It was, yeah, and we did this fundraiser for Crohn's and this mom came up to me and she was just in tears, crying, and she was like, my son was just diagnosed with Crohn's and he's like six months younger than Austin and to this day they're still really good friends and we've gone to their kids' weddings and they've been to mission farewells. You know, and these relationships that we've made with people that we never would have even known before They've they've helped our lives be so much fuller.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, that's so cool I think about. You know all the lessons that we learn through our challenges. And it's so cool to hear, you know, looking back, you've kind of even though this is a lifelong thing, you've kind of come through it on the other side and you can look back and see you know all those little things that have happened because of his challenge. And I just wonder if there was any time before and during that time, I mean there had to be times where you just felt like you know where, where is the Lord in all of this, like I'm so I've had it, I'm so done like throwing the phone and being so upset and where are you and why am I going through this? Were there times like that for you?
Speaker 2:I would say one of the hardest was when he became, when he grew the antibodies to the Remicade because I wanted those 10 years. I was told we were going to get 10 years and we got two. I was just devastated because here's this, 11 year old, and once again his back is hurting, his hips are hurting, he's going to the bathroom a million times and this is like three weeks after his Remicade and I'm like why are you sick again? This Remicade is supposed to be working. And that's when we went back and they they were like well, maybe we can shorten it a little and we'll go every six weeks instead of eight weeks. So they did that same thing within a week. He's right back to I, you know calling me from school mom, I can't, I can't play outside. He was on a, a flag football team, and he played for like five minutes. They came over to the side just crying I can't run, mom, it just hurts, it hurts. And I was mad because I was told I was gonna get 10 years.
Speaker 2:Um, that one was hard on me because when they're not in a flare, they call it remission. You forget that he's sick. I mean, yes, every night he has to take like 10 pills and you know, every other Monday he has to have shots and stuff. But that just becomes part of your daily routine and you don't think about it. You're like, oh, he's fine, he's fine. But the second he throws up or the second he has diarrhea, I'm like, yeah, he's still sick and it's never gonna go away. That's just, you know. We rallied again together as a family and I remember my daughter telling me that she asked her seminary class to say prayer for him and to add him to their fast, which I loved hearing those stories because it was affecting my kids in ways that I didn't even realize, you know, and that was just really hard. I'm a bliss maker, remember. Remember this was not on my list so I fixed it and we got remicade, so it's going to be fine. But then it was taken off my list again. I'm like what? Yeah?
Speaker 1:That's so frustrating. Yeah, it was rough.
Speaker 2:It was really rough yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it was rough, it was really rough, yeah. So, looking back, is there anything that you would have changed about how things happened? Or, you know, you wish you would have done things a little bit differently? Austin himself no, he was a trooper.
Speaker 2:He still is. He doesn't complain a whole lot, he just does what he needs to do and he just goes on with life. But I think I would have approached the siblings or my other children different. I don't feel like we explained things to them very well and, like my youngest, she was seven and I remember her telling me one night she's like, so when is Austin going to die? And I was like, oh, not for a long time. And she's like so, like next week, because in her mind next week is a long time. And I didn't fully I mean, I was dealing with it myself but I think it would have been good to not only go to like our Crohn's support group, but I think it would have been good to probably go to some kind of family counseling or something just to help them understand what he was going through.
Speaker 2:I remember people bringing him fun gifts. I remember people bringing him fun gifts and one of our neighbors brought him this huge bag full of mad libs and silly putty and funny mustaches and a blanket that was, you know, super soft, and the seven-year-old's like well, why is he getting that? And how come every couple of weeks he gets to go hang out with you at the hospital for like a whole day and he gets a shrimp and milkshakes and why don't I get that? It was just something that I I was like in survival mode. We need to get this kid to survive and help him get better, and I sometimes just forgot that. You know, there's an 11 year old daughter and a 13 year old that kind of understand and a seven year old does not understand. So I would have approached that, I think, in a different way.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's, that's when you are so focused on the child that is ill. And I think children are resilient and they feel everything very deeply still and you don't always realize what exactly is going through their minds because they don't say anything. I'm sure that that was just really scary for Cambry, you know, being so young and seeing him go through so much and being at the doctor so much and just not realizing you know how serious it was and well, and actually thinking that you know, maybe maybe this is, you know, maybe I'm not going to have my brother for very long.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Even when I was able to tell her things like how much of it did she fully even understand, you know. So yeah, I would have done that different.
Speaker 1:Yeah, um, I wanted to ask you were there like, um, specific moments that really stood out to you? I mean, like I know when, um, when my kids were going through difficult times and there's certain experience, experiences that we had that just really stand out to me and were like turning points? Were there things like that with that happened with Austin, where you know it just kind of turn things around or change things, or Um, I think there were just little things all along the way.
Speaker 2:My sweet friend, candice, showed up at my door one day with a bag of chocolates and she had no idea that we had been struggling just that day. She was very close to our family and understood the struggles that Austin was going through when she was going through her cancer treatments herself. Austin always wanted to do things for her and he would remind me, like, do you remember when Candace brought us pizza? I was like, yeah, I remember. And um, I guess the pizza guys forgot to change the address on the delivery because Candace didn't cook. She hated cooking, but she would deliver you a pizza. Haveinoes deliver it. And just one day, you know, dominoes showed up and there's two pizzas and I was like, well, what's that? Okay, we'll take them, you know. And then Candice calls me and she's like um, I think our dinner was delivered to your house, didn't eat it that's so funny, so cute, though.
Speaker 1:I love that. So last question, what have you learned about how to point toward hope or look to Christ, and what have you learned from this experience?
Speaker 2:I would say for sure that Heavenly Father cannot work miracles without other people's help, and we are those hands. And if Heavenly Father gives you you know, holy Ghost gives you this little whisper of go take cookies to this person or call them and just see how they're doing, I was. I just really learned the value of that, and I learned that when somebody asks you know what can I do for you, the average person says, oh, don't worry about it, don't you know nothing that you shouldn't ask what can I do for you? You should just do something, and it doesn't matter what it is, you know it.
Speaker 2:It's those little things that other people that are paying attention and noticing that make it so much more bearable. You know a text message in the morning saying I know you're going to the hospital today. We're thinking of you, you know, we're praying for you. Just those little things that Heavenly Father needs people to help Him, and those people that you have in your life are the ones that will make that happen. You know, and if you can be that person for somebody else, then that's an amazing opportunity too.
Speaker 1:So I love that so much and I just believe so strongly in that too, that we, we are his hands. A lot of times it has to be through us, you know. I mean he, he can only do so much and, like you said, those miracles don't happen without, without people following through on their promptings and listening and praying and fasting and doing all those things. And so I'm so grateful, Kristy, that you took the time to be here with us today and share your experience. And is there anything that you would say to somebody who might be just going through this experience with their kids, or maybe even their spouse? Are there suggestions that you would give to them?
Speaker 2:Talk to your bishop. I know that sounds cheesy, but sometimes Crohn's is definitely a bathroom issue disease. But if you can talk to those that you serve with and let them know what you're going through, because they're the ones that are going to give you the most support. And I would say, just talking about it and reaching out to other people you never know who else is suffering or who else has already dealt with it or has a brother that's dealt with it and I just feel like the more people are aware of what's going on, then you don't carry the burden so much yourself, because when you keep it in, then you just feel very much alone, like it's just too heavy to carry alone.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I completely agree. I'm so grateful for you taking the time to do this.
Speaker 2:You're welcome. Thanks for asking me. I appreciate that. I'm glad I could share.
Speaker 1:If you would like to talk more to Kristy, you can reach her on Instagram at trailtinkerbell, and if you or somebody you know has a story to share, we would love to share it. Please contact me at pointingtowardhopecom and, as always, choose joy. See y'all again next week.