At Gali Health, we are all about empowering individuals living with IBD as well as the IBD community as a collective force. We wanted our first Gali swag series to reflect the extraordinary powers that our community members possess, so we asked IBD advocate and illustrator @colitisninja for her take on how Gali supports her community on their Crohn’s and colitis journeys.

With this design, Amber chose to create a confident character who empowers her to take a stand against the illness and the pain it causes, while using humor to shift the focus and “separate” herself from the incessant battle. As she puts it, “You are not your disease. You have a disease. At the end of the day, you have to make a choice moment by moment. You can either let your body defeat you, or work through it. There’s always something you can do to separate yourself from it. I choose to give a face to my battles and the enemies I face.”