The following interview with anonymous took place via email. Q: Tell me about your family. A: I am a mother of two gorgeous teenagers, ages 15 and 17. I am so proud of my children. My son wants to be a chef and has been accepted at every college he applied to. My daughter is an excellent student and am very happy she did not inherit my lack of math brain. My son has struggled with mental illness for 4 years and it breaks my heart to see him in pain. My daughter is very popul

Meet Mary and her husband, Chris. Chris has Crohn's Disease. Q: Tell me a little bit about you and your husband. A: Chris and I first locked eyes five years ago at college. Chris was in the second year of his Masters program studying medieval history and I was a junior getting my BA in history. We were in a split course and one of the rare times graduate and undergraduate students really mixed. Part way through the quarter he disappeared from class and I was left wondering wh

Meet Natalie. Q: Tell me a little bit about yourself. A: I’m a 25-year-old newlywed from Michigan, with moderate Crohn’s and Proctitis. I’m pretty open about having IBD, and a lot of people know me as being active and healthy, with a love of traveling and cooking. But most people don’t know I took the drug Accutane - a drug linked to IBD - twice. I was on high doses of Accutane to treat severe cystic acne about 4 years before my IBD symptoms began. I had no idea it had been p

This is a transcribed interview that took place in person with Mary Steinke. Her son, Peter, was diagnosed with Crohn's Disease at age 16. Q: What was it like leading up to his diagnosis? A: I knew that something was wrong with him and it was going on for a long, long time. He missed quite a bit of school. He was just sick all the time and he was going to the bathroom all the time. It was really bad. Then he was losing a lot of weight and I finally said, Peter, you’ve got to

My name is Krista Nickerson. At the age of 9, I was diagnosed with Crohn’s Disease. It is hard to believe that was 15 years ago. Since my diagnosis I’ve exceeded every medication thus far. The list is extensive ranging from Remicade to currently Stelara. I also lived with a feeding tube for 3 years when I was newly diagnosed because I was malnourished. I’ve also had two bowel resections. One when I was in high school that left me without my ileum. Then, my second was recen