My Life with EoE (Eosinophilic Esophagitis)

Author’s note: perhaps the main reason I decided to write this is because I’ve gotten tired of having to tell people why I can’t eat anything. Now I can just send them this link, they can read why, and I can carry on! Seriously, though, I’ve come to discover that many more people than I thought or knew struggle with EoE. Maybe they actually don’t even know it yet. For them, I wanted to share my story — whether to show there’s others out there struggling with it too or to give some hints/help. I also think it should be helpful to people who may not know they have EoE to get familiar with the symptoms. Or at least to spread awareness about the disease, which is little known, but being diagnosed more rapidly each year.

Finally, and maybe the most generally applicable and important message from my story, is that challenges don’t have to be crippling. They don’t have to make you weaker or smaller or inferior. Often times the problems and challenges we face are the things that define us and make us better, make us stronger. This is one of those stories.

My Life with EoE (Eosinophilic Esophagitis)

For as long as I’ve been around and eating, I have had a strong preference for three things: Pizza, burgers and fries, and grilled cheese. So I guess it’s more like four things well suited for your average four year old. I didn’t just love eating those things, and going out to restaurants all over NYC, I also loved making them, and make a hell of a double smash burger with my brother known as the…