THE ECHO

by Simone Bender

It was in 2021 that Formula Four racer Ty Arbogast received the news: he officially had Crohn’s Disease. Amidst his racing season and struggling with the lack of treatment for his sickness, he was faced with one question from his parents: “What are you going to do about it?”

Arbogast, a freshman at Avon known for his racecar and go-kart racing, has been using his popularity in the racing community for four years now to raise awareness about the lack of research for Crohn’s Disease. According to Arbogast, the whole journey started through his personal experience of the disease and its interference with his racing career.

“It started when I was… in the beginning of race season 2021. At first I was just really tired,” said Arbogast. “I’d do practice and qualifying, but I’d be too tired to race. It got to the point where [my dad] realized something wrong, so then I started going to the doctor.”

With the severity of Arbogast’s sickness interfering with his racing season, medical attention became a first priority. Race days were replaced with doctor’s appointments and any pursuit in his Formula Four career had to be put on hold.

“They did a ton of testing. The amount of pokes I got for blood draw… it sucked,” said Arbogast. “It took, like, three or four months to figure it out. And I got diagnosed with Crohn’s.”

While a diagnosis brought hope of a better life, Arbogast said that treatment for this disease is limited and it’s still not easy to handle as a teenager.

“They put me on this medicine called Humira, and I’m taking that now. It took like two days, and I already felt better, but I was still sick,” said Arbogast. “I went from being like 70 pounds to like 48, so it took a while to get everything back.”

Arbogast said that even amidst recovery, returning to the race track wasn’t easy.

“I went to go back to the race track for the last race of the season,” said Arbogast. “It started pouring. The first lap back in the race, I wrecked… I don’t know, it just kind of summed up my year. It sucked.”

Devastated by the effects of Crohn’s and the impact it had on its victims, as Arbogast finally began to regain his strength and rejoin the racing community, he decided to use the popularity he was slowly gaining back for something more: spreading awareness.

“By telling people, by spreading awareness, I want the ultimate goal to be more money to be raised for research, so eventually there’s like a cure or even just better medicines,” said Arbogast.

According to Arbogast, his experience with treatment has inspired him more than anything else to work toward more medical knowledge about Crohn’s so that he can help other diagnosed kids to have a better experience than he did. To this day, he continues racing and raising both awareness and money for this campaign.

“When I started my Humira, the book full of side effects was so big. My parents almost decided not to put me on the medicine,” said Arbogast. “I just want there to eventually be a cure or, hopefully in my lifetime, something better.”