I know this is a health and weight loss blog, but I wanted to talk a little bit about my oldest son Gavin, who is 9 years old.

Most of you know that I have three children, ages 9, 7 and 4. They keep me very, very busy – but Gavin keeps me worried the most out of all of my kids. He’s also taught me so much.

Here are my three chick-a-dees last summer.

Let me give you a little back story. Gavin’s pregnancy was a very difficult one, I was 15 days overdue and had to be induced. I have no idea how I got him out, but I did it, in the c-searean room as my OB/GYN was prepping for an emergency c-section because he was stuck in the birth canal. I tried pushing one final time – the whole surgery crew watching – and thank God he came out and I didn’t have to be cut open.

From the moment he was born, I knew he was something special. Just an old soul. When he was about 6 months old, he babbled as a baby, but then it ceased.

When he was a toddler, he didn’t talk or verbalize much at all.

When the pediatrician said, “He’s fine. He’s normal,” I knew he was WRONG and not listening to my concerns. I learned to be an advocate for my son through his diagnosis of High Functioning Autism at the age of 3.

When Gavin’s severe eczema turned into skin abscesses and he experienced pneumonia and his baby teeth weren’t falling out, I knew that wasn’t right and that something was WRONG.

Even though the local doctors made me feel like a hyper mother, I pushed the issue and got him seen by the best physicians at the University of Michigan Hospital.

When Gavin was diagnosed in December of 2008 with an extremely rare disorder called Job Syndrome (or Hyper-IGE Syndrome) – only 250 people in the WORLD have been diagnosed – I knew I had become an even stronger advocate for him. (Brief information about Hyper-IGE.)

The last six months I have been fighting for Gavin to see the best physicians in the field that know about his condition. I’m so happy that he has been accepted into the National Institute of Health (NIH) in Bethesda, MD. We’re going in April for a week.

Here’s Gavin on his 9th birthday last fall.
He got a really cool coon skin cap from Papa.

Getting him into the NIH has been all me. Persistence, hard work, relentless pushing and becoming an ADVOCATE for my child.

There’s something about becoming a mother that changes you. When you find out something is wrong with your child, you fight for your child and you do EVERYTHING you can to make sure they have the best care possible. I would do ANYTHING for my babies, there’s no doubt about that.

There probably will NOT be a cure for Autism or Job Syndrome in my lifetime. I understand that, I’m a realist.

But you know what? There IS a cure for my condition, OBESITY. And a lot of the same principles that I have applied to getting Gavin the help he needs can be applied to my journey.

PERSISTENCE

HARD WORK

relentless PUSHING

become an ADVOCATE for my health

I told you about my son in the hopes that maybe you could learn from Gavin as I have. He has said to me, “Mom, why did God decide that I have to have bad skin?” And I’ve told him, “There are many things we are given in this life. Some things that we’re given aren’t by our own choice, but we always can choose how we react to what we’re given.”

Gavin has chose to react in a way to help others that have this condition. Last year, he chose to participate in a dermatology conference. In his words, “If it will help other doctors diagnosis a kid that has bad skin like me, I want to do it.”

The same applies to losing weight and getting healthy. Some of us may have a genetic predisposition to gain weight, we may have emotional scars that cause us to overeat or we may have other strikes against us that are beyond our control.

But it’s important to remember:

There is a cure for obesity.

We have a choice.

We CAN do something about it.

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