On Wednesday morning, Mark Folk sat down in the family room of his home on Melody Lane in Shelby with his daughters, Sydnee Folk and Madison Hartman. It wasn’t time for a family meeting. It was time for their IVs.
For years, three of the four members of the Folk family have battled Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis. My poor mother, she s never sick, Hartman said.
Gastrointestinal diseases cause a host of symptoms from body aches and unexplained fevers to excessive bathroom use and bleeding in the gut. And unless the members of the family told you, you couldn’t tell any of them have a chronic, autoimmune disease.