Before the world stopped, life was normal. If you’d asked us if we were healthy, we would have said yes. We were already vegetarian, sometimes vegan. We thought we were doing the right thing.

But looking back, I can see we were living a 'good enough' kind of healthy. We were junk food vegans, running on convenient, processed foods. Organic was on our radar, but it was a 'nice-to-have,' not a necessity. A choice we’d make when it was easy. We used a standard water filter and figured that was fine.

It was a life of casual compromises. We were doing better than many, so we didn’t push to do better for ourselves. We didn't know we needed to. We didn't know that the floor was about to fall out from under us.

The Diagnosis

The first sign that something was wrong was the fevers. They were relentless and rhythmic. For two weeks, my wife, Jill, was just gone. Lying on the couch, watching old Bob Ross episodes, quietly accepting her fate while her dad, a doctor, and I monitored her condition over text message. It was a period of quiet, agonizing dread.

Finally, we had to call it. We went to the ER.

What followed was a storm of terrifying possibilities. The first doctors suspected a GIST, a gastrointestinal stromal tumor, and the prognosis was grim. Then it was another potential diagnosis, equally frightening. With each new theory, the floor fell away a little more.

So when we finally received the definitive diagnosis—a benign desmoid tumor—our first, overwhelming reaction was relief.

It sounds strange to be relieved by a grapefruit-sized tumor, one that had become so infected it had put bacteria into her bloodstream and nearly killed her. But it wasn't malignant. Compared to the prognoses we had been bracing ourselves for, 'benign' was the most beautiful word in the English language.

But after the initial wave of relief washed away, a new reality set in. The tumor was benign, but it was there. The doctors explained that operating would be like kicking an ant's hill—it could provoke the cells and make things spread. We weren't going to cut it out. We were stuck with it.

The relief faded and was replaced by a heavy, long-term question: If this thing was going to be a part of our lives forever, what were we going to do about it?

The Search for a Sanctuary

The answer became our mantra: Control what you can control.

My thinking was simple. Jill's body was already working overtime to keep this tumor at bay. It was a full-time job. My job was to do everything in my power to lighten that load. I wanted to remove every extra, unnecessary thing her body had to process so it could focus all its energy on the real fight.

The purge started in the kitchen. I knew that conventionally grown food carried a chemical load—pesticides, fungicides, all the '-cides.' We cleared out the processed junk and committed to whole, organic foods. Our new rule was simple: food can be medicine or it can be poison. We chose medicine.

With every bag of organic produce we brought home, with every harsh cleaning chemical we threw out, it felt like we were taking a piece of our power back. We weren't just victims of a diagnosis anymore; we were active participants in our own health.

But the kitchen was just the beginning.

My research kept leading me back to a single, stark fact: our skin is our largest organ.

Suddenly, I saw our home in a new light. The harsh cleaning supplies, the synthetic fabrics in our clothes, and most of all, our bed. We spend a third of our lives sleeping. Eight hours a night, wrapped in sheets, breathing in whatever fibers and chemicals they were made from. Was our bed a place of healing, or was it another source of strain?

The mission expanded. It wasn't just about what we put in our bodies, but what we put on them. It was about minimizing Jill's total exposure to foreign chemicals that could tax her already strained system. We simplified our cleaning supplies, going as natural as possible. We started seeking out organic clothing. And we made finding truly organic bedding a top priority.

Honestly, the environmental benefits were just a bonus at first. My core focus was my wife's health. I've always cared about sustainability, but this made it personal. We weren't just trying to save the planet; we were trying to create a safe harbor, a clean sanctuary where her body could rest and heal.

The Birth of OrganicFavorite.com

Rebuilding our home became my full-time mission. But it was one thing to have the conviction; it was another thing entirely to execute it. The process was a frustrating, time-consuming maze of vetting products, deciphering labels, and falling down research rabbit holes.

The journey really crystallized with a single product I couldn't find: a 100% organic, king-sized comforter that was also fluffy and cloud-like for our bed—the centerpiece of our new sanctuary. I searched everywhere. It didn't seem to exist.

And that's when I learned the hard way why. To be vegan, we couldn't use down. But an organic cotton filling would become a lumpy nightmare in the wash.

But something incredible was happening alongside this frustrating search.

With every harsh chemical we threw out, with every organic meal we cooked, it felt like Jill could breathe a little easier. The rhythmic fevers became less frequent, then stopped altogether. The quiet, agonizing dread that had been our constant companion began to lift. We were taking our power back, and we could feel the shift.

And then, at her next scan, we got the news we had barely dared to hope for. The inflammation was down. The tumor, the grapefruit-sized monster that had nearly taken her from me, had begun to shrink.

It was stable. Manageable.

The sanctuary was working.

It worked so well, in fact, that it created a space for a different kind of miracle. The sanctuary we built to protect Jill had made room for our daughter, Claire. She is the living, breathing heart of everything we fought for—the ultimate proof that a clean, safe environment isn't just about avoiding harm. It's about creating the conditions for life to flourish.

That’s when I knew what I had to build. Not just a comforter, but the resource I wished I’d had during our family’s most vulnerable time. The frustrating search wasn't just a business problem; it was a roadblock to healing that no family in crisis should have to face.

Along the way, I had found other incredible, 100% organic products, like our GOTS-certified bathrobes and our organic waffle blankets. The problem wasn't that these things didn't exist—it was that they were scattered and hidden, requiring an enormous amount of work for families already overwhelmed.

We created Organic Favorite to do that obsessive work, so you can focus on what truly matters. We lived this. We know the peace of mind that comes from knowing your home is a true safe harbor.

Our mission is to share that peace, to help you create a sanctuary for the people you love, just as we did for our own.