Stories In Motion 

This story follows campers as they spend a week in Washington State at Camp Oasis, a place for kids with IBD to just be kids.

A story about Casey Starr, a race car driver living with ulcerative colitis, who is using her racing platform to bring awareness to inflammatory bowel disease.

This story follows Ravi, a teen with ulcerative colitis, as he and his family learn to navigate life with his chronic illness.

An explanatory video looking at ways to explain living with limited energy, due to chronic illness, to people who have not experienced energy limitations.

Questions Answered

Do you feel that anything positive has resulted from living with IBD?

What is the worst aspect of living with IBD?

What feelings did you experience when you got your diagnosis?

What would you like others to know about IBD?

How are you supported? 

How do you support others in the community?

How has your life change since your diagnose?

Captured in collaboration with James Krzmarzick

About This Project

This project is made by an IBD fighter for IBD fighters. It is a site dedicated to patients or anyone who has had inflammatory bowel disease touch their life. My hope is that whatever kind of day you are having, or whatever stage of acceptance with this disease you are in, you can find a sense of community in the stories here.  

I was diagnosed with Crohn's disease when I was eleven years old. No one I talked to knew what it was, and the people who did would often say 'oh yeah my grandma had something like that'. I remember sitting in a computer lab in middle school talking with new friends, and trying to open up to them about my disease. They typed Crohn's disease into the search bar and started listing off symptoms. They turned snickering and asked if I bleed out of my butt. I remember crumbling inside, to me that moment justified why I always kept my health issues to myself. 

Looking back I should have said 'yeah I do, this disease sucks', but as a kid that young all I registered was the fact that my illness was a joke to others. Even as I grew up and realized it was a ridiculous and untrue thought, I kept it to myself. I grew out of feeling embarrassed by my disease, and now even have a lot of pride in how I’ve handled it, but the habit of not talking about it stuck with me. 

I chose to be mostly private about my illness until 2017 when I found out I needed surgery to remove an irreparable portion of my intestines. This was the first time I branched out into the community, mostly on Instagram and Reddit, to seek help and see how others handled living with IBD. Listening to other people talk about their experience and show their scars brought me so much comfort. It lifted some of the burden of not wanting to be open about my illness  

Going through life that way for so long is part of why journalism is so important to me now. It provides me with the opportunity to give a voice to people who do not always feel that they have one. This project started because I wanted people with IBD to have a place to go to hear honest and open experiences from others in the community. I hope to keep telling stories of people in this amazingly resilient group, and to continue to learn about myself and this journey in the process.