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About Tina
My name is Tina, and my struggle with Crohn’s disease began when I was 22 years old. It derailed my career, my prospects for further education, many of my friendships, my sense of self, and my personality in my early 20s when my life was supposed to just be beginning. I had over 20 surgeries in seven years along with hundreds of procedures and imaging studies since my diagnosis. I’ve dealt with Crohn’s colitis, proctitis, several fistulae, abscesses, and cysts over the years in addition to multiple extraintestinal manifestations and diagnoses. In more recent times, I have become an advocate for the chronically ill and disabled. Shattering the stigma against inflammatory bowel disease, ostomies and fistulae has become a way of life for me.