Bowel Moments
Real talk about the realities of IBD...On the rocks! Hosts Robin and Alicia interview people living with Crohn's disease, ulcerative colitis, or indeterminate colitis (collectively knows as Inflammatory Bowel Diseases or IBD) and the medical providers who care for our community. Join us to meet people affected by IBD- we laugh, we cry, we learn new things, we hear inspiring stories, and we share a drink.
Bowel Moments
Meet Nick M!
What happens when your chronic illness becomes the catalyst for global exploration and environmental advocacy? This week we talk to Nicholas Mertens! Nick was diagnosed with Crohn's disease six years ago and he's turned his health journey into a platform for investigating how climate change impacts healthcare systems worldwide.
While most college students rarely venture beyond their comfort zones, Nick has represented his university at United Nations climate conferences in Dubai and Azerbaijan, researched indigenous biodiversity in Australia, and traveled to eight countries across four continents—all while managing his Crohn's disease. The political science and environmental studies major shares his remarkable journey from diagnosis to long-term remission, revealing how these experiences shaped his understanding of global health challenges.
The conversation takes fascinating turns as Nick details the practicalities of international travel with a chronic condition. From refrigerating Humira during 40-hour journeys to navigating customs with medication documentation, his strategies are invaluable for anyone with IBD considering travel. His culinary adventures prove equally enlightening—discovering his body tolerated exotic kangaroo meat perfectly while rejecting familiar McDonald's hamburgers in foreign countries. These unexpected reactions highlight the unpredictable nature of Crohn's and the importance of flexibility when managing the condition abroad.
Nick's involvement with the Young Patients Autoimmune Research and Empowerment Alliance (YP-AREA) demonstrates his commitment to supporting other young people with chronic conditions. This growing organization creates educational resources specifically for adolescents and young adults navigating autoimmune diseases—demographics often overlooked in medical literature and research.
Listen as Nick shares his powerful perspective on remission, defining it not by lab results but by quality of life and regaining control over your condition. His parting wisdom reminds us that climate change and healthcare are "inextricably linked," and understanding these connections is crucial for anyone living with chronic illness in our rapidly changing world.
Links:
- Young Patients Autoimmune Empowerment Alliance (YP-AREA) Instagram
- YP- AREA YouTube- Video of the transitioning to adult care webinar they held with friend-of-the-show, Dr. Jordan Shapiro
- Traveling with prescription medications- US Customs and Border Control
- Traveling with IBD- Crohn's & Colitis Foundation USA
- IBD Passport- nonprofit with advice on traveling abroad with IBD
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Hi, I'm Alicia and I'm Robin, and you're listening to Bowel Moments, the podcast sharing real talk about the realities of IBD Serve on the rocks. This week we had a great conversation with Nicholas Martins. Nick is an undergraduate student with Crohn's disease who's studying political and environmental sciences. We talked to him about his work looking at how healthcare impacts the environment. We talked to him about all of the travels that he's been able to do in his program, including some very interesting culinary opportunities, and we talked to him about his involvement with YP Area, which is the Young Patients Autoimmune Research and Empowerment Alliance nonprofit organization, and we talked to him about what his plans are now that he's about to graduate. We know you're going to love this conversation just as much as we did. Cheers.
Speaker 2:Hi everybody, Welcome to Bound Moments. This is Robin.
Speaker 1:Hey guys, this is Alicia and we are absolutely delighted to be joined by Nicholas Mertens. Did I say that right?
Speaker 3:No, you got it right. Usually people don't, so that's perfect. Hi everyone, my name is Nick Mertens and thank you for having me today on the podcast. I'm really excited.
Speaker 1:Well, we are excited to have you as well, but our first unprofessional question for you is what are you drinking?
Speaker 3:Okay. So I put a lot of thought into this, which is like five minutes, and it was what I had available in the fridge. But I was feeling kind of summery so I you know the Arnold Palmer half and half like drink. So tonight I decided that I'm going to go and try to feel a little summer and get a little bit of lemonade and iced tea together and it's, it's, it's hitting pretty good.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I love a good Arnie Palmy.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you know, they're just, they're good Like ninety, nine cents. It don't matter, they just slap. Yes, I don't do.
Speaker 1:They just slap. Yes, I don't do it very often because I typically like I will only get it if I'm out to eat. But you know I don't have typically iced tea and lemonade at home. But once I do it I was like why don't I drink this more? This is good.
Speaker 2:Literally Are y'all having anything tonight I'm having some hot tea. I'm having some ginger tea and I put a little honey in it tea.
Speaker 1:I'm having some ginger tea and I put a little honey in it. Alicia, what are you drinking? It's mint tea. And then I also, nick, as you said, like unfortunately three seconds before I ran up here, I also grabbed a Waterloo nectarine raspberry to drink. They're tasty, I'm happy. So next question for you what is your IBD story? What brought you into our community?
Speaker 3:Yeah, you know it's been. It's been a hell of a journey it's. I actually just celebrated my sixth year of diagnosis a day ago. So thank you, thank you all, for having me on. This is like my little celebration anniversary. This is one I don't forget. And so my story kind of starts rather slowly burns and then it's kind of been a long term remission.
Speaker 3:So back when I was like a sophomore in high school I'm 22 for all the listeners at home, so I'm getting old but when I was about in sophomore year or so of high school, I started having these stomach pains and at first, you know, I just thought it was like some sort of dietary thing. So, you know, it could be gluten, it could be meat, whatever. You've heard it all. And so originally I, you know the first signs came because I was donating blood. We had blood drives at school and you know I was noticing they were like, yeah, your iron level's low, you've lost 15 pounds of weight. My appetite didn't feel the same. And then eventually you know this is around Christmas time I started going between having hyperthermia and hypothermia, so like swings every couple of weeks where I'd have, you know, a temperature of 102, 103, down to like temperatures of 95. Right, so clearly something was going on, right. And so we went into urgent care after probably about a month, or probably two to four weeks of this, because you know it happened in slow cycles. And so we went in and, you know, at first they checked for append. You know, like your appendix is about to go boom. And the doctor's like, yeah, your appendix isn't about to go boom, but we have no idea why your stomach is feeling like this or why any of this is happening. So it ended up being we went from urgent care straight to the ER. Right At first I was all chipper because I'm like, oh, they're not going to find anything.
Speaker 3:And then they do more blood work. And then all of a sudden they're like, yeah, so we're going to have to do a CT scan on you because you might have leukemia. So, yeah, so like, totally like you know, roundabout. And at the time I didn't understand any of this because, you know, sophomore me was just more focused on getting home to play my video games. So you know, I was kind of just chilling in the lobby while my mom is like freaking out texting my dad like oh my gosh, what's going on? And I vividly remember also that it was Hockaday Minnesota on the TV. So whenever Hockaday it's a Minnesotan thing, you have to be Minnesotan to understand. But whenever you see it, though it's, whenever I hear that I always think of my Crohn's diagnosis.
Speaker 3:So get the CT scan, it comes back, I have Crohn's, and then eventually, after going through, they put me on some antibiotics in a banana bag and all of a sudden, you know, my symptoms start improving. Like that I go through a colonoscopy within the next couple of days with a really nice doctor and you know they're like you have some some mild to moderate, you know, inflammation. But what we're going to do is we're going to put you on azathioprine, some sort of steroid to help out with that, some antibiotics, and then eventually start on Remicade. So that went well until it didn't. I was on Remicade for about. So they usually have for Remicade. You typically start with like a four hour one, then a two hour one, and they kind of work your way up. So they have you do three initial trials originally. So I got through the three trials and on the third one, after the first two going well, I had an anaphylactic reaction to it. So that threw a huge curveball and like, what was I thinking? What was I going to do? And so eventually we worked and brainstormed and I ended up on Humira, the like injectable pen that y'all have. And so since then it's now been six years I've been doing Humira biweekly.
Speaker 3:I got off azathioprine four years ago now and, outside of my vitamin D levels fluctuating, I've been in long-term remission since. So it's, you know, it's definitely been an uphill battle. Sometimes you got to be careful of what you eat. But ever since having that original diagnosis, I really have felt so lucky and blessed to you know. You know to be in this long term remission and I've had colonoscopies. They come back well, but really this whole thing is like for me for a while it was I just want to stay in remission. I don't want to make Crohn's like a big part of my personality. It's I want to act normal, if you will.
Speaker 3:That continues into college. I'm an environmental studies and poli sci major, so for one thing that's kind of came into my research is how does health and climate change intersect? And surprisingly, we're going to get into this later there's a lot of different stuff happening, so part of that was joining YP Area or a young patients research advocacy group and that so far has really helped me kind of put pen to paper on what I've experienced. And I've also been fortunate enough to go to the UN twice and travel to eight other countries to explore on four different continents about how does climate change and health intersect and what does it mean to travel with Crohn's in long-term remission. So that's kind of my story. Like you know, tldr, but yeah it's been one of remission but kind of learning where do I fit in the world?
Speaker 1:Wow, that is so super, super cool. I'm so excited to hear more about your travels and all of your trips to UN and everything like that. So just go straight there and enlighten me please.
Speaker 3:So let me back up. So the Paris Climate Accords are like the big climate change treaty. You probably heard of it before. It's where every country in the world until recently signed on saying that they were going to try to get rid of climate change or at least try to negate it, and this is backed by not only the UN, but also the World Health Organization, imf, a lot of other things. What a lot of schools do, or a lot of universities, is they send students to this, where the country delegates meet, where other scientists meet, where business leaders meet to talk about climate change and what each little country is doing and how it fits into the bigger picture.
Speaker 3:So it's called COP, and I've been lucky enough to go twice, one in Dubai, the United Arab Emirates, and the other time in Baku, azerbaijan, which borders Iran, russia and is in the Caucasus. Both of those countries are oil drilling countries, so they both bring a unique perspective into how climate change impacts everything and, at least during my travels there, a lot of health is an integral part. I mean, the World Health Organization mentions that it's. You know it's intersectional right. As temperatures increase and, like definitely in more global southern parts of the world, you see people having higher heat mortality. You see people that are more, that are already vulnerable, being more vulnerable already because the resources aren't there compared to like the us or eu or australia, right, or the other things too is. You also see, young people are really the ones that are causing a ruckus in this space.
Speaker 3:So so in COP 28,. You know, protests usually aren't allowed in the UAE, but you would see people inside these UN delegation zones of, like, young people my age or younger, protesting about health and how we need to make sure not only we have a clean environment, because you know animals, but also because it's important for mental health, it's important for the air you breathe. I mean, see the wildfires in LA and it's not just something that happens in the US. There was a huge declaration that came out of Central Asia, with Baku, where they were like a bunch of youth from six different countries came together and declared that, like these are demands from our government in the UN. If you don't meet it, like this is what's going to happen.
Speaker 1:So it's a it's a very changing space, but it's very empowering too, if that makes sense. So that's kind of the UN ones at least. Yeah, it does make sense and it's very cool to see young people using their voices and not, you know, waiting for something to change, but really demanding change when it needs to happen. I'm curious, how did you get involved with this? Like, how did you decide on climate science and obviously health? I think may come from Crohn's, but I'm curious if that was sort of the impetus to add the layer of health as it relates to climate change into it, or like you know, trying to address it Right.
Speaker 3:So when I was going to college, I'm like, well damn, I care about the environment, but I don't know where to go. So eventually I got directed into environmental studies and then political science, because I'm a political junkie, but then also, too, a lot of policies intersected with environmentalism and especially like health stuff too. So as you take more classes, I took a lot of ones that were on like gender or you know, and you realize that, like there's already gender disparities when it comes to how people interact with climate change and the impacts from that, but that's also directly proportional to health. It's like a triangle. You know what? If one falters, the other falters. Right, health wasn't the thing that I was going for. In fact, it was something that I was trying to stay away from, but it's so intertwined with everything you just kind of stumble into it and it is what it is and it's honestly quite fascinating to learn.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think it makes sense for you to get involved with it. I know maybe you're trying to avoid it, but it does make sense for you to go into it because then you have the background and I do think you know there's there's layers to this as well. Just even you know not just the sort of you know we're running out of water and clean air and all the things and how that affects people's health, but also the impact of health on the environment, like all of the medical waste that's produced, all of the you know the waste that's produced, as we're, you know we're creating these medicines and and things like that. You know the science that goes into dealing with health in and of itself as part of the change I would imagine, and something to be looking at. Wow, yeah, fascinating.
Speaker 3:Yeah, no, and you are like spot on, because a lot of you know, again, a lot of it's so intersectional where you, if you impact one area I mean medical waste is a huge one right now.
Speaker 3:There's big pushes within the EU or even the World Health Organization, and Baku actually just had 163 countries sign not the United States, though saying that they were going to try to reduce medical waste within sustainability and try to reach net zero, which that's a whole other ballpark, but at least that they were going to try to reduce their sustainability to neutral carbon emissions, right.
Speaker 3:So I mean that's a huge thing. And even, too, if you look at, like some of the research that's coming out right now, you see that, like young people are being, are going to be, the ones impacted by the decisions we make today, especially when it comes to, like clean air, whatnot. It's either we're going to be taking care of our parents, or when we're trying to raise our families, or whatever dynamic a person wants to have in their 30s or 40s. You know they're going to directly be dealing with those consequences. So, and going back to healthcare, again you know it's so intertwined and you know this puts extra burdens on the healthcare system. So it's, you impact one, you impact the other. It's so it's so hard to describe how, like you know Lego pieces, they fit together.
Speaker 1:So, when you were there, what was your role? Were you observing, or did you have a specific job, so to speak, when you were there?
Speaker 3:Yeah, no, that's a good question. So when we were so as students, so there's like different classes of badges that you get when you go to the UN. So you get some that are like you know you're a delegate, so you're the that are like you know you're a delegate, so you're the one that's, you know, signing for your country, and then you have people that join. So it's kind of like imagine the state fair and then each booth at the state fair has, like you know, the staff that help run it. Or they have like the expo and you have those staff. So now imagine each country in the world has its own little pavilion and its own little staff helping out as like kind of showing what they're doing in like a showroom. So then they have like scientists, business people, you know, like indigenous leaders, that sort of thing.
Speaker 3:I was an observer, which means that I'm either a researcher or a student that's going there to achieve some sort of thing. So for me, when I was in Dubai, I researched how sovereign wealth funds so like Saudi's like big money investment, or the UAE is big money investment, how that's being used in the climate change, or, this year, research indigenous biodiversity in Australia. So you know, like you're kind of a student, and then you get to interact and you get to talk with, like everyone from I talked with the Prime Minister of Norway on the Bahamas to a couple years ago, to where you talk to someone that has like a little two acre farm, you know, in the middle of nowhere in, like you know, azerbaijan. So you really see a whole spectrum of people. It's quite cool.
Speaker 1:Explain to me how you landed on sovereign wealth funds and indigenous people in Australia for what you're researching. I mean, we do have indigenous folks here in Minnesota. I don't know if I needed to point that out to you, but I'm curious how you landed on those. That seems like man. How'd you get there?
Speaker 3:No, that's valid. So with sovereign wealth funds. So so since my professor kind of pushed to be like, since you're going to, like the Middle East and the Gulf where there's a bunch of oil, try to research something where there's a lot of, you know, oil, investment and whatnot, and so over the summer, I mean, I brainstormed everything. Originally I was going to look at like oil companies and what does their website say, but you know, as an undergraduate, that's kind of a tall order to do like a rhetoric analysis. So I ended up being like you know, why don't I just ask people what they're, what they're doing and then just write a little article on it? So that's what I did. So I settled on sovereign wealth funds, because 10% of all the world's money today is in those funds. So I'm talking there's almost $12 trillion in these funds that people invest in the other companies. Norway, Singapore, China, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Alaska all have these sovereign wealth funds that they use to invest in other companies. So if you want capital, these are usually the people that you talk with.
Speaker 3:And then I also studied abroad, in Australia for six months, and so this was in between, and so during that time when I was in Australia. I'm really hoping to go to grad school there because I fell in love with the country while doing it and during that time, one of the big things that was stressed in my ecology class was that indigenous knowledge is so important for targeting, you know biodiversity conservation. So being someone that you know for lack of better word, you know fell in love with the country but then also, at the same time, is looking at going to grad school there, I thought it was like a neat kind of thing to do, because I can do Minnesota indigenous work whenever that you know, like the U of M. But if you want to really look at Australia, I mean you either got to travel there or you got to go to a conference like this. So that was kind of my reasons for picking these and I got to write papers. They were quite fun.
Speaker 1:Writing papers is fun as a Minnesotan as well, like there's something much more interesting. I'm with you it's much more interesting to go study like an island, like that's so incredibly different than Minnesota. I'd much rather research that as well. I also happen to completely love New Zealand, though I'm just going to point that out there. So like, yeah, like I'll go there any day and research, so any excuse to go.
Speaker 3:Hey, valid New Zealand. I've been to Tasmania before and like down near New Zealand, If you, if you got to go, you got to go Like it's the coolest thing ever. It's so pretty.
Speaker 2:Yes, yeah, no, but my, my favorite place I've ever been for sure, australia, New Zealand and Tasmania, whatever. I want to switch gears a tiny bit and bring us a little bit back to so. This is a lot of travel. This is being in another country for six months. How do you manage that? Like being on Humira, having to have shots every other week, and also like, do you have to worry about the food that you're eating? Like, how do you? The flights are so long? Like, how do you? I need more information about how you prepare for travel, how you prepare to live in another country with the medications that you're on. Can you talk me through that a little bit?
Speaker 3:Yes, and thank you for bringing that up, cause I got like some insider tips that I'm so excited to share. So, first thing, at least with Crohn's, you never know when Crohn's is just going to be a pain in the ass, for lack of a better term. And so for me, whenever I eat airline food, it's never good. It's like it's like Exxon Mobil in the Gulf of Mexico. They just don't mix well. So one thing that I always like to do is regardless is pay extra for the aisle seat. Trust me, obviously the leg room is nice, but you also don't have to worry about waking people up to go do anything, and on top of that, you also have that chance to go use the restroom if need be. Right, and that is something huge that I've done it.
Speaker 3:And packing snacks as well, that you know are safe. So for me, those are like granola bars. I love my sweets, so sweets too. Or even like sometimes packing like Doritos. It sounds weird, they're not the healthiest, but just having calories sometimes is just what you need to just survive, cause the longest flight I've done is 15 hours, and when you're in a little flying tube for that long, you have to prioritize your own homeostasis over trying to you know. Uphold some diet that you can do on the ground if that makes sense.
Speaker 2:That makes so much sense. I always say eat what you can tolerate. And if you can tolerate french fries, if that's what, like potatoes, are your safe food. Like we're not talking that you're going to eat french fries for every meal for the rest of your life. But I mean, maybe some of us are. I don't know no judgment here about food. I am a no judgment free zone when it comes to food. But you have to. You have to be able to eat food that you know you can tolerate. And if that's Doritos, I mean it's delicious. So literally.
Speaker 3:and it's so important too, because sometimes, especially too, you also, when you fly, you have to drink a lot of water, because you know the humidity inside a flying tube an airplane is only 10%. Well, normal inside is 50 to 60. So if you aren't staying hydrated as well at least for me, that exacerbates my Crohn's right. And at least when you're, you know, defecating a lot, you're losing fluids and electrolytes. So eating calories, making sure you get that, it's so essential.
Speaker 3:And then also to I think another key thing is traveling with Humira. You have to keep it refrigerated, right, like that, that's just the nature of it. And when you're living in a country long term, like, let's say, study abroad, you can't ship a medication from, like you know, Minnesota and it just fly over to Sydney. You can't do that, it's highly illegal and you would be fined thousands, if not tens of thousands of dollars, right. So when I went to Australia I had to pack my Humira in like a little like door dash bag and then I had to fly you know 40 hours of travel and make sure that it stayed at you know, refrigerator temperatures. So during that time it was really hard because I had to work with insurance to get the approval that I could bring the right amount of Humira, and I will say, for that, one of the key things I recommend is if you're doing an extended vacation where you need that much medication for that time, one of the best things to do is you can ask your insurance for something called a vacation waiver, and typically they will give you something, or they will approve it at least, where they allow you to at least take more medication.
Speaker 3:That's what my GI did and it worked really well for me. So I would recommend looking into that. Otherwise too, you can talk to usually your pharmacy and they might have some workarounds you can do Next as well, when trying to keep things refrigerated. Using a refrigerated bag is so important because if you throw it in like a normal little tote bag or a plastic bag or whatever, it's not going to stay refrigerated and you have to declare that customs too, and it's a lot easier for someone in customs to look at your bag that's refrigerated and realize it's medication, versus a random target bag that you're bringing from Minnesota and it's like, no, I don't know if this is legit. So going through customs is a whole other spiel too, you know.
Speaker 1:I'm curious like did you have to bring I'm assuming you had to bring a letter from your doctor explaining what that was, and they gave you like your whole supply for all six months?
Speaker 3:Yeah. So I had to get, like I want to say it was like I screwed up because I only I shorted myself two pens. So that's another thing too about travel is being able to be adaptable is so important. You know, like there was some like I was supposed to have eight pens total but I only had six, right. And when you're in Australia and you're not going back for another six months, you kind of have to work with your doctor to figure out what's going to work well. So being flexible and then also being having honest communication with your doctor is so important.
Speaker 3:But then bringing it through customs as well, that's something else, because you need to have the original, you know, the original casing for it. You also need to have a note from your doctor, especially if it's prescription or a biologic, describing what it is. And then also with most medications too, they can't go through the little x-ray scanner you do at the airport because that'll like change everything. So or you know, like the pharmacology, if you will, of it, so you have to do a hand swab. There was one of my classmates in the past sent theirs through the little machine thingy and it ruined their medication.
Speaker 3:Thankfully it was not as severe as Crohn's right, it was something more manageable. But I mean still, could you imagine that you have, you know, your $10,000 a month medication and like that it's screwed up because you put it through TSA. So that's why it's like you got to be careful and then, when you get on the ground too, you have just declare it, because then you at least don't have to pay fines and at least they'll swab you and tell you you're good. So that was kind of my key thing is just like declare it, don't know how to go through x-ways and just bring you know documentation of everything. I think that was just a key part of this entire thing.
Speaker 1:So at some point I was working with some folks when and they were looking to study abroad and, depending on the country, they they require you to have health insurance, like to buy local health insurance, basically, and there's student plans and things like that. Is that like, did you have to go through that? Like, how did you, how did you go about preparing yourself to understand, like, the health care requirements that you would need in order to study abroad? And then did you do anything to kind of make sure that you had identified some doctors in it sounds like you're in Sydney that were IBD specialists and just just in case you would need somebody there.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you know and that's a great question and a YP in you know, yp area, the young patients research advocacy group that I work with and they're so kind helped me out a lot like figuring out some of the logistics of this, or at least providing that moral support, and I would say one of the key things is A, you're going to have to buy health insurance. And, b, usually if you study abroad, you go through some sort of provider, be it your institution, literally the other institution you're traveling at, or a nonprofit in between, and usually they either have contacts on the ground that'll help you, and typically you pay them some and then they'll get you the health insurance. For me, when I was in Australia, I was actually on the West Coast, in Perth I just used Sydney because people know that. But when I was in Perth, though, I had to basically get like something called Bupa, which was basically like a health insurance thing that all people have to get, and I had specifically.
Speaker 3:Australia is nice and it covers pre-existing conditions, but let's say you were to travel by yourself to like Madrid or you know, like you know independent travel, and I would highly recommend getting you know travel health insurance. It's a policy is pretty cheap. It's usually like, I mean relative, of course, cheap. It's like 100 bucks for, you know, a two week vacation. But one thing for sure to do with that is, whenever you buy the policy I always do it as close as possible to when you buy your plane tickets and then also to before you buy it make sure that your you know pre existing conditions are covered, because that Obama care clause does not fall under. You know that they don't have to follow the pre existing conditions piece like normal health insurance does.
Speaker 1:Yeah, unfortunately that is just a American health plan thing and, frankly, we'll see if that holds to be honest.
Speaker 3:Yeah, agreed with that one. Hope fingers crossed they fix that, but we'll see.
Speaker 2:So you've talked about the actual travel. You talked about your snacks on travel. You talked about medications when studying, studying abroad. What about like food when you arrive, like when you're in the uae or these arab countries, like, do you plan for that or are you I, I don't know, my Crohn's is in my stomach, so food is like a huge, like it makes me nervous just thinking about that because because of my Crohn's being my stomach, so well, and the and this is not a dig.
Speaker 3:I think this is one of the cool parts about traveling and I think y'all will agree when you go to a different country, you're not going to get the same stuff that you would, you know, right down the block, right?
Speaker 3:So, especially going to like a place like azerbaijan, spain even, or like the united arab emirates, a lot of the food is very different. It's a lot of rice cooked in oil, a lot of complex spices. You know, in Minnesota we're bland, we think pepper and salt are spices. So going somewhere where they use, like right, like cumin, turmeric, saffron, you know, like you know the stuff that you see that you never cook with when that's commonplace, that that's something where you really got to sit back and be like how am I going to react to this? Right? So, like when I was in azerbaijan, I ate like a lot of food and I'm not gonna lie, I didn't make the smartest crones decisions I like it was kind of like I ate it and then two hours later I'd hella regret it, but during that time, it wasn't delicious yes, that was, yes, it was so good.
Speaker 3:Sometimes deliciousness is worth the literal payoff, right. But I, when, when, uh, when, traveling, though, it's always something where I'm like I have to look at the local cuisine or go off of personal experience, because you know, like if some cuisine is similar to others, or at least you can kind of figure out general patterns. So it's like it's being like okay, I know my stomach tolerates well, but I can't eat camel, for an example. You know what I mean. Like I can't eat this, but I can eat that, right. So that was something that I kind of played with and I'm like okay, I also know that I can't eat a dish that's called by this or has this sort of ingredient in it, and you can kind of tell too.
Speaker 1:You know what I mean now I'm curious what was the, what was the craziest experience that you've had?
Speaker 3:oh god, okay I think.
Speaker 1:What was the dish? I'm curious, no, so I've tried.
Speaker 3:I mean, there were some foods that I'm surprised my crones didn't react with. Like when I was in australia, I ate kangaroo and emu and crones loved it, no problem at all. Right, I go to azerbaijan and I try like they have. Like sheep is a big thing in azerbaijan. So I ate like different types of like sheep and some my stomach liked and others I didn't. It was literally throwing a dart at the dartboard and just hoping that it was a sheep that my crones tolerated, right. So kangaroo, okay, sheep, no, like that was weird. And then also cam. I had camel just coming back from the uae less than a week ago and totally cool. But then I try eating a normal hamburger from mcdonald's over there nope, that was bad. Well, you know you can't.
Speaker 1:Half the time you don't even know what's gonna happen, you know wow, yeah, it is interesting that, like the, it seems like the more exotic meats you seem to deal well with. I wonder if, like you know, it kind of goes back to the whole like farming culture, like with the sheep, is there something about the farming techniques that we're using that are you know? Are the sheep being fed, you know, grains that have glyphosates on it or GMO Like? Is it a GMO kind of thing, like what is it perhaps about that particular sheep?
Speaker 3:No, no, and that's a fair question. I think part of it too was how it's prepared, because I like, obviously, the type of sheep, and a lot there too, it was like you know the specific, the grains or you know the food that they grace on is very different than what you'd get in. Like the midwest right, like cow country over here, is very different. You know sheep country over there and I, I think too, a lot, a lot of it is very it was very oily, like oily. You know fried food, so very good, but still fried, and so I think eating a lot of that fried food too is also very hard on the stomach and at least for me, that's something I've noticed Like I can't even eat Cajun anymore without having going through some of those things as well. You know what I mean. Just because the oil is so strong. But yeah, the food is one of the things that's most fun, but like you never know how a country is going to treat you from their food, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1:Very true, very true this is. This is going to be a very Midwest specific question for you. Having grown up in North Dakota and having, you know, kind of lived in in Minnesota and in rural places in Minnesota even, I'm curious how the hell did you get to a point where you are this person that's going out eating camel and like touring all over the place? This is not a normal. You're not a normal Midwestern boy. Tell me about where this, this impetus came.
Speaker 3:Oh God, this goes back to when I was a kid, all right, so when I was in third grade, like we're going way back. So when I was in third third grade, I thought that I was gonna go live like in like Florida or California, so you know like, and I wanted to go help the whales. That was like my big thing, that I wanted to do. And so, you know, I was helped the whales. And then eventually in hall of high school I was like dead set. I applied, I almost was confirmed that I was going to the University of Hawaii at Manoa, like in in Honolulu, but I ended up in Minnesota. I made the right choice but I'm like, damn, that would have been cool. I think a big thing for me is I've always had this drive to want to see the world. You know, like Minnesota is cozy. It's a cozy place. You can, you can be born here, you can raise a family here. You know your rights are going to be protected. But at the end, you know, at the end of the day, at the same time, there's not a lot of, let's just say, cultural diversity, at least within the Midwest, outside of maybe Chicago or Detroit. So for me I really wanted to go see what does like a desert look like, what does all these things look like, and then you know. So I was fortunate enough that my university has all these study abroad programs and a lot of them are very nicely funded by donors, and so I've really taken it on myself and I'm like, if you, if I'm given this opportunity by a law I'm Muslim, so that's why I say that but, like, if I'm given this opportunity by a law, then I might as well just go through each opportunity and just try my best to see what I can about the world, right. So that's brought me.
Speaker 3:I was on a diplomatic climate change. I haven't even mentioned this. I was to the Bahamas and did like a diplomatic climate change event with their prime minister prime minister's office, right. So I've done everything from that Azerbaijan, the UAE, spain, turkey, australia, right. Like again, all these different countries, but they all fit into this climate change health umbrella and if you want like a cohesive picture on how this is affecting everyone, you need to go to where they are and then listen to their stories. I think that's the most important thing and, at least as a white dude as well, it's so important to hear other people's stories because, like for 99% of history, you know, my identity has been the one running shit, unfortunately. So it's important to go see where it's at and learn from the people that are actually experiencing it. I guess that's a part of it too. I didn't even think of it like that, but yeah, that makes any sense.
Speaker 1:Louder for the people in the back. Yeah, that is incredibly enlightening and you make me, you make me have hope for the world. Okay, so next question for you is I want to ask a little bit more about I found YP area actually through my mom shout outs to all moms out there.
Speaker 3:One thing is, she found this Facebook like ad asking for young adults to submit an application. I did, I didn't think much of it and then I got accepted into it after going through an interview. And you know the experience at first I wasn't, honestly, I wasn't expecting much outside of. This is just another way for me to kind of vocalize my crones and you know, like, just talk about it. But they've been so helpful because, you know, yp Area's big mission is about finding and disseminating research to, you know, young adults, adolescents, usually a demographic that's really been ignored in the literature, you know, in the academic literature, of course. But then also, how do you like doctors, how do you have this conversation with young patients about what they're going through? Like?
Speaker 3:For me, when I first got diagnosed, I was at an adult practice as a pediatric, you know, as a pediatric patient, so the doctor was treating me as if I was an adult. But I had to go through all like you know it was. You know what I mean. It was like this weird kind of guys. So for me it was kind of nice that I've lived through this at least.
Speaker 3:And now, to put this in perspective. So YP Area has just really been focusing on trying to increase the engagement with, with this demographic, and I think one thing that's just been so empowering for me is I'm part, so we have three different aims, so each one is focused on, like, research, dissemination, you know, creating materials, you know logistics, you know all that kind of stuff, and so the one that I'm on is the one that does a lot of our PR kind of stuff, like the Instagram outreach, making connections with other, you know, nonprofits, etc. And I think, so far, though, it's just been so enlightening to be able to work on a campaign that's ran by young adults with supportive faculty, really pushing for this research and getting people involved. We're still growing. We're still quite small, but we're growing and we're still mighty, and, yeah, it's just it's been really rewarding. I've been with them for about a year and a half now.
Speaker 2:Is it open to students across the country, or is it just schools in Minnesota? Like what, how? What is the reach?
Speaker 3:No, and that's a great question. We have a lot of geographic diversity, so we've got everyone from Cali to New York city, so anyone within the contiguous U? S and, honestly, we've accepted people from Canada before. So anyone from the contiguous U? S or Canada is more than welcome to apply or apply, or at least you know when we're looking for members again. But I, you know, we the one of the things that YP area and you know Christine and Courtney have really tried to do, that's the, that's our faculty members that help lead this, you know, project, and one of the big things that they focused on is getting diversity, both geographically, of course, but then also with an identity, so that we create inclusive environment for everyone, and at least having people from across the nation is one damn good way of getting diversity.
Speaker 1:Well, and you don't have to be a student, right, isn't it, that you can also just be a young person that isn't necessarily a student.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and I didn't sorry, sorry if I said student, that's just a habit for me. But yeah, you don't have to be a student either, because we really cater to anyone that's between like the ages of you know, like between 16, 17, all the way to 24. And you don't need to be a student. You can be someone that's still in high school, entering the workforce. Maybe you're in limbo somewhere, but regardless, though, you don't need to be like a college student talking about your health. You can be someone that you can just be someone that's just. You know you're working your job and it's something you're curious about. This is the perfect avenue to try to learn more about what you can do and also maybe how to get better access to the care that you deserve, if that makes sense.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. When you first got together with this group of folks from kind of all over the place, what would you say are like the top five things that they identified that were priority, like areas to disseminate information on.
Speaker 3:You know, there were quite a few things that we were trying to do, because we get like different awards, you know, like grant awards and whatnot, and so, you know, one of the big things, at least, that I remember working on specifically was, you know, we were trying to increase our outreach. That was one big thing is just trying to interact with more people. However, that may be. One big thing too that we really focused on was trying to host these like social events, like a like a zoom event or a zoom lecture about. You know, we was kind of setting up the infrastructure and we actually did host one last year, last year 2024, one on health insurance and another one on like doctor patient conversation. So that was another like big success that we have.
Speaker 3:So those were two big things at least, and I think another piece, too, at least, was creating more collaborations with I don't know if I'm at Liberty to name our partnerships. You know just, I'm not sure if I am, but I will say one of the big things that we did is we were trying to also collaborate more with different NGOs or nonprofits to try to create more, you know, awareness about what we're doing but also what they're doing as well and see where young patients fit into this greater, you know, like health. You know like this greater healthcare conversation, be it Crohn's, rheumatoid arthritis, you know even diabetes. You name it, we've done it.
Speaker 1:That's great, and I know one of our past guests, dr Jordan Shapiro, was one of the doctors that was on the webinar.
Speaker 3:That's a cool connection, yeah, and that was a great webinar too, and Dr Shapiro did so well with that it was. I remember watching it at least I was really tired after work, but it was really interesting to watch nevertheless, and it was good to actually see it happen in execution. So that was one of the things that we really focused on and going forward. We would like to host more of those.
Speaker 2:I am sad, nick, to have to ask you this, because I've loved talking to you and I've loved hearing your stories, but it is, in fact, time for me to ask you our last question. So what is the one thing that you want the IBD community to know? What's the advice that you have for us?
Speaker 3:I think the big thing for me that like just listening to this and this is the one thing you can take away is one climate change and health are so inextricably linked and even if you don't think that climate change will affect you in any way, or maybe you will, maybe you've seen it, you know, but regardless, you know climate change, healthcare, it's so, in you know, inextricably linked. It pays to know about both. But I think another thing too and this is more personal to me is that remission can look like a bunch of different things for a lot of different people and that even when you're at the lowest low, it's still possible. For me, I think something that really helped with my doctor was saying remission isn't what comes out of your blood work or what you see in your diagnosis. It's about the quality of life and feeling that you have control over someone, something else, having control. So for me, a big thing for me is one thing that I try to take.
Speaker 3:Control is, you know, traveling to eight countries within the last one and a half years. But that can look like something else for you. You know, if that something is taking up a new hobby, go for it. If that's going to university or getting that new job, or even just leaving the house for the first time and doing the little steps, that's all that matters. Remission is not a final end all be all. It's rather a process that you get to and then that's something that you are happy with with wherever you are. It evolves over time, just like you.
Speaker 2:Wise words. Nick Wise words.
Speaker 3:Thank you. And also, yp Area is amazing and our Instagram is super cool. You guys should go check it out. But yeah, anyway, though, that's the end of my spiel.
Speaker 1:We will link to the YP area in the show notes everyone. So if you are a young person that's looking to get involved or just wants to follow their social media, it's educational, it is a very great social media. So thank you for your work on that, nick. So we'll link to that in the show notes. Take a look at that. We'll make sure we link YP area also in our Instagram, robin, if we can, when we post for Nick. Absolutely, nick. What an absolute delight to get to know you, and I'm sad that you're not in St Paul so we could have done this in person, but that's okay. We'll have to figure out another time to get together. But thank you, thank you. Thank you so much for coming on the show. We really appreciate you sharing your obvious passion for climate change and health and giving me back some hope for the world. I especially appreciate that today. So thank you for being on the show. Thank you everybody else for listening and cheers everybody.
Speaker 2:Cheers everybody.
Speaker 3:Cheers. My Arnie is now gone, but I'll pretend to drink it. Hi, this is Nicholas Mertens, and if you enjoyed this episode, please rate, review, subscribe and share bowel movements with a friend. Thank you for joining everyone and have a great day.
