Columns

Growing up, my older sister and I were tasked with calling relatives when our younger sister was hospitalized due to a cystic fibrosis exacerbation. We relayed the news while my mother hurried around, packing bags and getting ready for the inpatient stay. I assume it was helpful — one less…

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…

I’ll confess an omission. I waited two months before telling the publishing company I worked for that I’d been struck deaf. The thought of losing my journalism career paralyzed me. I assumed my disability disqualified me from my dream career. How can a deaf person conduct interviews? I had…

I often wonder if my parents realize how much I appreciate them. Last week, they showed up for yet another medical procedure. Those who call me a “hero” overlook my parents, who are always by my side. My parents are my caregivers. They live five hours away, but will…

I recently got together with a group of friends, and in the middle of our conversation, one confided that she was excited to start therapy soon. Everyone joined in the excitement and congratulated her. Those also in counseling, which turned out to be most of the group, discussed their thoughts…

Every time I tune into the local or national news, I see another story claiming that everyone will either get or be exposed to COVID-19. And over the holiday break, I learned that five friends — who all had been taking precautions seriously — have contracted…

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…

I really did think it’d be my last Christmas. Sure, I was on the lung transplant list, but the doctors said I’d have to wait months before donor lungs became available. I was daily coughing up chunks of green gravel, trapped in a slow suffocation and ending each night wondering…