James Lankford: “just like you do, I get a lot of requests in my office. I get about 150,000 emails a year. I don't know how many…”

“just like you do, I get a lot of requests in my office. I get about 150,000 emails a year. I don't know how many different requests that I get to come in for personal meetings, both instate and here in Washington, DC, but a few weeks ago I got a video request from a bow-tied 8-year-old asking for a meeting with me--a person I had never met before, but he said he wanted to be able to come in and talk to me about rare childhood diseases. And I have to tell you, you would have to see the video to be able to see the meeting request that I got in from Christian Jaspersen. He is from Keota, OK, which no one can find here without using Google Maps, I promise you. But he was enthusiastically wanting to be able to share his story about a complex medical history and how things have gone for him. So we said yes. Christian was born with a very rare medical condition that most of us couldn't pronounce, much less want to be able to live with. He was born with his intestines outside of his abdomen. That impacts about 1,500 babies a year. It is extremely rare. Patients are born sometimes with their intestines or other organs outside their abdomen. You can imagine the damage that that does, even while they are still in the womb. Well, he required a ton of surgeries. Several surgeries were required immediately after birth. Several digestive impacts on him will be felt for a lifetime. He spent 5 months in NICU after birth.”