Columns

“This just feels so sudden,” I said to the doctor who had just become my sister Mary’s new CF physician. Days before, she’d been transferred from one CF center to another in need of an emergency lung transplant. Though I had always known that my sister would eventually need a…

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 system, especially before I was comfortable with my own diagnosis. I…

“Fall Risk” is a new musical comedy about cystic fibrosis (CF) and transplant written by yours truly. CF education and awareness are very important to me. One of my favorite takeaways from the show has been how educational the rehearsals have been. Last year, during dry runs for…

In my last column, I talked about how having a brother with cystic fibrosis affected my mental health growing up. In this one, I’d like to discuss how anxiety manifested for me as a child, and how it still affects me today. It’s important to mention that anxiety has…

I wrote an entire column this morning and then threw it away. All 800 words — or 790, if I don’t want to annoy my editor. I wrote it, reread it, and thought, “This doesn’t feel right.” It doesn’t feel right because nothing feels right — because something is terribly…

I feel numb. Not excited or depressed, just numb. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out why our culture fosters numbness. Companies peddle products to improve our lives and market to our hungry eyes. And we may be desperate to feel anything except what our current circumstances…

Clinic anxiety is real, especially if you’re frequented by bad news. When I was little, I never wanted to go to the doctor. “Clinic” meant hearing speeches that felt disciplinary in nature, adding medications to my regimen, or being threatened with a lengthy hospital stay. Needless to say, I…

Out of 120 columns, my most controversial remains “Sugar Does the Trick, But I Won’t Let It Trick Me.” In the May 2018 piece, I critiqued the classic dietary advice that suggests people with cystic fibrosis should stack their diets with sugar to achieve rapid weight gain. I said…

Get the second opinion. I used to think second opinions were for privileged celebrities who dared to defy the doctoral hierarchies of the world. Those who don’t mind being branded as a “doctor hopper” or an “inconsistent patient” because they can pay for whatever bills or bylines that come their…

When I was a kid and adults learned that my younger sister, Mary, had cystic fibrosis, their standard response was a meaningful sigh coupled with a slow nod. Then, they’d often tell me, “Oh yes, I read the book.” I knew what they were going to say before the words…