Lung, Scrappy, and Hungry – a Column by Nicole Kohr

“Is one a crusader or ruthless invader?/ It’s all in which label is able to persist.” That’s one of my favorite lines from “Wonderful,” a lesser-known song in the Broadway smash “Wicked.” I was recently reminded of this song when one of my best friends, a fellow cystic fibrosis…

Movie musicals are the hottest trend in the musical theater community right now. “Dear Evan Hansen” and “Tick, Tick… Boom!” are just two of the adaptations, and it’s rumored that “Tarzan” is the next show to move from stage back to the big screen. Fans of the 1999 animated Disney…

“Her Voice” from Disney’s “The Little Mermaid” is one of the most beautiful songs. In the Broadway show it was sung by Sean Palmer as Prince Eric, and his voice hits me right in the hormones: “And her voice It’s sweet as angels sighing And her voice…

Does my disease define me? I’ve been battling this complex question since I was diagnosed with cystic fibrosis at age 5. Most of my CF friends would say no. The disease is a part of them, but it doesn’t make up their entire identity. While I’d never want to be…

For those unfamiliar with the Broadway sensation “Phantom of the Opera,” one of its most famous songs is called “The Music of the Night.” I was enjoying Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber’s music the other night when I realized it was 3 a.m. It made me think of all the…

Second in a series. Read part one.  In my previous column, I described the lead-up to my diabetes diagnosis. Let’s resume where we left off: in an isolated room at CarolinaEast Medical Center’s emergency department (ED) in New Bern, North Carolina. Upon my admission for an extremely high blood…

First in a two-part series. Turns out a spoonful of sugar did not help the medicine go down. Instead, it aggravated my steroid-induced diabetes. Allow me to provide a little background. Based on issues I had throughout childhood, such as food sensitivities and digestive issues, my pediatric team suspected…

At the start of each new year, I try not to have regrets from the previous year, especially as related to my cystic fibrosis. “Forget about that handful of medication you missed,” I’ll tell myself. Or, “So what if you didn’t stick to your diet!” Then, I’ll watch an old…

In a previous column, I explained that I was diagnosed with mycobacterium abscessus — one of the deadliest infections for cystic fibrosis (CF) patients — in my junior year of college, and how that was one of the many times that my chronic illness affected my education. I was…

Get-togethers are relaxing, supposedly. I do not feel this way, and I blame this on my cystic fibrosis (CF) and the extent to which my mother and I had to prepare for social events when I was growing up. There are three reasons why…