Columns

In the three years that I’ve spent away at college, I’ve learned oodles of life-changing lessons that can only be taught by good ole Professor Experience. Freshman year, I learned that duct tape won’t keep twinkly lights on your walls, but will allow…

I won’t lie. The first two months after my double-lung transplant were rough. I wasn’t in much pain, but my body was struggling to adjust to the cornucopia of transplant drugs, and I experienced the torment of withdrawal from the powerful painkillers I was on. After those…

You’re about to read something I wrote two years ago. I had been diagnosed with anxiety and depression not long before then. Both left me utterly crippled, and would continue to do so for several months, but what I struggled most with…

Last week I wrote about how lung transplantation isn’t the Boogeyman I once thought it was. After I had done my research, I finally considered being evaluated for a transplant. My doctors and I expected it to be at least a couple years before I’d need…

“OK, I have to go, Han. I’m sorry. I love you, OK?” “I love you, too.” My boyfriend leaned down, kissed my cheek, and walked through the hospital doors. He had just pushed my wheelchair inside the lobby, but this was only a drop-off — a…

There are two great fears in a person’s young life: “The Talk” and the Boogeyman. The Transplant Talk is an intertwining of the two for many with cystic fibrosis. My dad was deployed in Iraq when I hit puberty, so the duty of The Talk fell to my…

I was repulsed by my body. My arms were scarred and barren of muscle, thin as twigs. They hung from a bumpy, pale torso — bumpy from the ribs that protruded, the port-a-cath that sat beneath pockmarked skin, and the rubber feeding tube above my belly button.

FOMO. Fear of missing out. Ever heard of it? I don’t have a lot of phobias. Yeah, being alone in a dark room creeps me out, but I’m not afraid of needles, heights, snakes, public speaking, or even dying. When my boyfriend and I get…

Gaining weight can be just as difficult as maintaining lung function for many with cystic fibrosis. Most have heard people without CF joke that they wish they had our problem with gaining weight. But for those who experience the struggle of malnourishment and unstable weight, we know…

This afternoon, while browsing the fiction shelves at a local bookstore, I saw my own ghost. As I turned over a colorful paperback copy of Meg Wolitzer’s “The Uncoupling,” a small, optimistic cough flew past my left ear. At first, one. Then…