Columns

I crawled into my closet and pulled out a dusty, battered Ultimate X-Men: Vol. 1. Sunray slivers peeked through the slightly-ajar door, lighting sections of the comic book as I read beneath my jackets on their hangers. I was in 10th grade and had just lost the…

Twenty-four years of living with cystic fibrosis allows for a plethora of learning lessons — mostly through mistakes I’ve made. There are many things I wish I had done differently regarding my health to improve the effectiveness of my treatment. If I knew then what I know…

Cystic fibrosis (CF) is unpredictable. Some days I feel like I can run my fastest personal mile, and on others I feel like I’m staring at the treadmill waiting to hit my goal distance. I’m a person who likes to find patterns in things — from patterns…

Many label their lives with cystic fibrosis a “battle.” I prefer “war.”* There’s the daily grind: The clinic visits are strategic meetings. The treatments are patrols. The two-week antibiotic courses are skirmishes. Then there are the defining moments of the war — the brutal flare-ups when bacteria or…

In August, Allergan pharmaceuticals announced in a letter to healthcare professionals that it would be restructuring its sales force to align with the “evolving needs of our broad product and consumer portfolio.” Because of these changes, Allergan said that some of the sales professionals in clinics…

There’s a certain amount of pride that often accompanies the proving of one’s own capability. In other words, exceeding someone’s expectations is literally the best. Sometimes, the “someone” you’re aiming to prove wrong isn’t on your team — they anticipate your failure because they think you’re lame. (Sad!) Other times, they…

In ancient home videos of the Dell family, there’s shot after shot of my sister Shelby clinging to me tightly while I cringe. That was a good illustration of our relationship, until recently. I was diagnosed with cystic fibrosis a few months after…

Cystic fibrosis is nasty. Bacteria makes my breath stink. Malabsorption makes me fart a lot. I cough so much that my face turns red, and blobs of mucus often fly out of my mouth and onto the shirts and/or pants of those standing in my general area. If I could…

I’d been anticipating my bilateral cochlear implant surgery for more than a year. I knew it required some drilling into my skull, cuts behind the ear, and having devices shoved into my cochlea. I did not expect to be restricted to Tylenol…

Only 61.8 percent of cystic fibrosis patients comply with their daily respiratory medication and 41.2 percent comply with physiotherapy plans, according to a 2008 study. I’ve observed that most patients and their parents want to be perfectly compliant — they just haven’t formed good strategies for…