Columns

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…

I didn’t want to write about this yet. Of course, I also thought COVID-19 would be over by now. From the very beginning of the pandemic, I had hoped, like so many others in the chronic illness community, that things would go differently. I always knew the pandemic wouldn’t end…

Hair has always been a huge part of my identity. Sometimes, it was my way of communicating. Other times, it revealed my declining health. Despite the risks of it being cut too short or dyed the wrong color, my biggest fear was always losing my hair.  …

“I am not doing well at all.” I don’t like saying this. I don’t like saying this because I have children who read things. I don’t like saying this because I have students who see and worry. I don’t like saying this because I don’t like saying this. But…