Kristin Entler grew up as a lifelong patient in the semi-rural south. She is a columnist at BioNews and is working working toward her MFA in Creative Writing at the University of Arkansas. Diagnosed with Cystic Fibrosis at 6 months old and with CF-related Diabetes at 12 years old, she hopes her column “Advocacy and Abnormality” is a space for inclusion and solidarity for anyone living in a body that is often seen or treated as different.
She recently relocated from the foothills of Appalachia to the Ozarks, where she lives with her partner and their dog, Azzie, who maintains that he gets all his stubbornness from both of his parents. Her other writings can be found in publications such as The Bitter Southerner, Poetry South, Gulf Stream Literary Magazine, and Poet Lore among others.
“Go, go, go!” my nurse says while coaching me through my pulmonary function test (PFT). I’m pushing air into a mouthpiece that’s connected to a computer with a robotic arm that moves up and down to adjust for…
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I don’t remember why I said what I said to the little girl I had just met on the playground. “I have something called cystic fibrosis.” Maybe I was coughing or short of breath. Or maybe we were exchanging…
While the world could be more accommodating to people with disabilities, I’ll admit I feel guilty that I’m allowed to register for my college classes 48 hours before my nondisabled peers. This priority access is available to any…
“Do all my friends hate me? Or do I just need to get some sleep?” Stand-up comedian John Mulaney’s punchline cuts through the hum of nearby tree frogs. The light from the TV casts a blue glow on my…
Through the sliding glass doors and down the stairs of the medical plaza, the midday news played — muted, but with captions running — on the TV mounted across from the reception desk. The water fountain hummed. Where I…
When the U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced two years ago it had approved Trikafta (elexacaftor/tezacaftor/ivacaftor) for some cystic fibrosis (CF) patients 12 and older, I carried what I considered to be a healthy amount of skepticism about…
Three days before my first semester away from home, I sat in a sea foam green chair straight out of the 1990s. I was 20, six months shy of graduating to my city’s adult CF clinic from the pediatric…
The first time I had to drop out of school, I was in sixth grade. I had just been diagnosed with cystic fibrosis-related diabetes. My family and I decided we didn’t feel safe navigating insulin injections in the school…
I didn’t want to write about this yet. Of course, I also thought COVID-19 would be over by now. From the very beginning of the pandemic, I had hoped, like so many others in the chronic illness community, that…
It’s been a long time coming for me to write directly about my life with cystic fibrosis in a body that gives me no choice but to balance illness with society’s definition of a normal life. I am here,…
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