Advocacy and Abnormality – a Column by Kristin Entler

The other morning, I was startled awake by the sound of my insulin pump screaming for me to change a part of my infusion set. That happens regularly with my Omnipod system, which I use to provide insulin for my cystic fibrosis-related diabetes. Omnipod sets off an alarm…

This past spring, before graduating from my Master of Fine Arts (MFA) program in creative writing, I had one last meeting with my adviser. We connected via Zoom as I sat on my back porch in North Carolina while he sat in his office back in Arkansas. That’s when he…

There’s a video buried deep in my phone’s memory from seven years ago. It shows me driving on the Blue Ridge Parkway in the summer, the leaves full and making a canopy of shade over the road. The moonroof on my Honda, the car I still drive today,…

A pod of pelicans flies over my head, then out over the ocean waves, where they skim the surface of the water. One in the middle of the mass pumps its wings, and the formation follows suit like a ripple effect in both directions. I’m struck by the gracefulness it…

The divers are synchronizing, the skateboarders are grinding, the gymnasts are flying through the air, and like so many others across the world, I’m sitting firmly in front of my TV, taking in all the spectacular feats of human capability. Growing up, I remember going to the clinic every three…

“We could go to the beach,” my mom says as the two of us sit on her screened-in porch in Alabama. It’s spring break, and because I’m picky about who can stick me with a needle, I’m at my parents’ house to get my port flushed by my regular nurse.

“When can we get out of here?” my mom asks the group of doctors on their daily rounds. I’m in a hospital bed, tape tugging at my skin as a nurse unhooks me from an IV antibiotic. While she presses buttons on the machine, I reach over to the…

Note: This column describes the author’s own experiences with Orkambi, Trikafta, and Symdeko. Not everyone will have the same response to treatment. Consult your doctor before starting or stopping a therapy. In December 2019, I was working through my final year of a master’s degree in creative writing. Most…

If you’ve been keeping an eye out for a new column of mine, even noticing the gap between my last column and this one, you might’ve seen that I’ve been absent from this website for a few months. I didn’t go AWOL. I did tell my editors when I…

“You don’t sound so good!” my dad says to the family Shih Tzu, Jasper. And my dad’s right: The little dude (as we affectionately call him) doesn’t sound great. “He’s been coughing on and off for a while now,” my mom chimes in. But for the past few…