Our Stories

My name is Samantha Rynearson. I was diagnosed with Crohn's disease in January 2013 after an entire year of tests, labs, scopes, and more. My Crohn's disease was originally classified as mild, and was able to be controlled by pills. My pregnancy with my daughter, Jude, put me into remission for nearly an entire year, which was sweet bliss.

I was diagnosed with ulcerative colitis when I was four-years-old. I was the third generation in my family to be diagnosed, so my parents were ready for what we were going to face. At least that's what we thought at the time.

Philosopher Wayne Dyer once said that, "When we change the way we look at things, the things we look at change." When I was diagnosed with ulcerative colitis in 2008, it was easy to fall into a mode of feeling isolated and alone during periods of flares. I forgot what life was like as an energetic and healthy young professional. The expectation of a healthy life and the unfair reality caused a lot of unnecessary suffering. What I learned is that we all have the option to dance with life. Crisis can open a door to a new opportunity, a loss can be seen as a gain, and a breakdown can turn into a breakthrough.

My story begins on March 21, 2011, when I was rushed into an empty operating room late at night as a surgical team scrambled to come together to remove my colon and replace it with an ileostomy.

I was very active in high school. I played pretty much every sport I could - I did martial arts, football, track, cross country, and basketball. Being physically fit was important for the sports I played but it was never required to do any outside weight training.

My name is Courtney and I have been battling Crohn's disease since 2014. It has been quite an undesirable journey, but the disease won't keep me down! I'm so happy to say that I feel the best I have in the two-and-a-half years I have been battling my Crohn's disease diagnosis.

A few years before I received my ulcerative colitis diagnosis, I was a social work graduate student at West Virginia University. I began experiencing blood and mucus in my stool as well as bouts of constipation and diarrhea. I went to my doctor on more than one occasion, and was continually misdiagnosed.

My journey started when I was a normal 14-year-old boy in his eighth grade year of school. I was very active in sports, student council, band, and choir. I began having IBD symptoms in the spring of 2009. I started having to run to the bathroom all the time and constantly being tired and run down. It took three years to get an official diagnosis because I was misdiagnosed with C-Diff.

My much healthier half, James, has been a part of my life for most of my 12-year battle with ulcerative colitis. He was around for the tears, the pain, and all my different treatments and diets to try to keep me in remission. By the time we were dating for eight years, my running non-joke bad been, "If we do not get married on the 10 year anniversary of meeting each other, we failed as a couple."

My active, outdoors loving, nine-year-old son Cal was having a wonderful week at a boys’ wilderness day camp seven years ago. What could be better than bows and arrows, canoeing, and jumping off rope swings into a creek? After the last day of camp, we noticed a rash on Cal's legs. It was apparent he had come in contact with poison ivy. Even after treating, the rash became worse and hives developed all over his legs. This seems to have been the trigger that set his ulcerative colitis in motion.