Columns

“You smell sick. I literally can smell the Pseudomonas.” I was a young teenager, and in classic teenager fashion, Mom’s comment aggravated me. For one, no teenager haunted by puberty’s horrors warmly welcomes a parent’s wrinkle-nosed remark about odor. Second, in all my stubborn, hormone-raging years, I worked hard to…

As I write this, I’m sick with a fever and chills. I know it’s a result of being stressed in recent weeks and neglecting self-care, but I feel the need to keep moving at the same fast pace. I hate putting my life on hold because of my health. After…

At 54 years old, and five years after my double-lung transplant, I feel September’s arrival differently than most do. I don’t just notice Pennsylvania’s crisp air or the dry leaves crunching underfoot. The month carries a weight that goes beyond seasonal change for people like me who are living with…

I was lucky to grow up with a lake in my backyard. On quiet mornings, the water would lap a steady drumbeat against the seawall. Yet despite being raised next to a body of water, I never learned how to swim because of the environmental risks I faced with…

This Labor Day weekend marks five years since I received the gift of a double-lung transplant. Actually, it happened on Sept. 5, 2020, but that was the Saturday before Labor Day that year, so I tend to equate the holiday with my surgery. I’m writing this column as my…

My life with chronic illness has been a tumultuous ride on multiple levels, but I’m also grateful for the life I’ve been granted, especially since my cystic fibrosis (CF) spurred my double-lung transplant in 2017. I thought it’d be fun to share eight lessons of life and health that…

My friend Steve Silberman died a year ago on Aug. 29, 2024. I was familiar with Steve before he knew me. Steve had written a highly popular and applauded person-centric history of autism titled “NeuroTribes: The Legacy of Autism and the Future of Neurodiversity.” His writing, much like my…

I’ll never forget my daughter’s college graduation — not because I was there cheering in the audience, but because I wasn’t. Instead of watching her walk across the stage in person, I was watching the ceremony on my phone from the intensive care unit, where I was fighting a bowel…

This time of year, the cicadas at my parents’ house are loud enough that their siren call leaks through the sound of the morning news on TV. When I walk out onto the back deck, their buzzing seems to fill my bones. Then the heat hits, even in the early…

I have been thinking a lot about aging lately. I think about it when I notice that it takes my dog, Duncan, a second longer to stand up after a nap; I think about it when I notice a gray hair in my beard, a privilege; I think about…