My name is Kelly Dwyer and I live in the Washington DC metro area with my wonderful spouse and two school-aged children. I was diagnosed with perianal fistulizing Crohn’s Disease of the terminal ileum in 2018, but have been living with Crohn’s since 2003.
I learned about Girls with Guts through Twitter and Instagram. I was drawn to the wonderful information that they provided to newly diagnosed IBD patients, and to the supportive and positive community that uplifted other women who were experiencing the same unique difficulties that I was living through.
I’ve been active on social media for some time, speaking about my experiences with fighting the difficulties of the American health care system, parenting through chronic illness and other personal pieces of my journey with IBD. Girls with Guts reached out to ask me if I’d like to write for them, and I was so delighted at the opportunity to join. Being able to contribute a small piece of a shared experience to this broader community has helped me to find focus and direction for my writing, especially when my brain fog and fatigue and other IBD symptoms make work difficult. I’m so happy to be part of this team.
I’m a busy mom to two wonderful school-aged kids, with all the mom-chauffeuring, mom-organizing and mom-homework-helping duties and responsibilities. My spouse and kids and I are all enormous geeks, and we love playing video games together and watching anime and telling math jokes at the dinner table and building robots to terrorize our sweet kittens. I’m also a writer of short speculative fiction, though IBD has made creative pursuits challenging in recent years. You can find me online @deviousdwyer or deviousdwyer.com.
