Mutations & Conversations
— Tré LaRosa

When I was asked to write this column over two years ago, I was thrilled, but I wasn’t quite sure what I wanted to write about. I knew I would have some leniency to tackle different subjects, and I…

I can’t separate my physical malady from my mental diseases. Cystic fibrosis, depression, and anxiety are all linked, and they’re all separate. I think of my blend of comorbidities as a morbid sort of smoothie. I can tell…

I used to dislike surveys, polls, and questionnaires. I understood why they existed — customer or patient feedback is important — but I never really saw anything change once I took a survey. I hadn’t considered that perhaps my…

I recently saw a meme in which a person is smiling or laughing in the first panel, then looks utterly dismayed in the second. The second panel’s overlay reads: “Tfw [that feeling when] I realize I’m being perceived by…

I used to be ashamed about my insecurities. I believed that as a man, I was supposed to be strong. I was supposed to silently hate myself, my appearance, and my body, while projecting an immutable air of…

I can’t remember when I first fell in love with science. I loved learning about it and going on field trips, but I didn’t enjoy science fairs because I missed hanging out with my friends (although I did place…

Two years ago, I found myself drinking a cup of coffee in a quiet coffee shop in downtown Chicago. I still struggled to call myself a writer or understand my writing goals. (Though, by this time, I had already…

Life would be much easier if every complicated disease or disorder weren’t so complicated. COVID-19, cystic fibrosis, depression — if they all manifested uniformly and could be treated the same across the afflicted population, the world would be much…

I used to scoff at the idea of saving money for retirement. It didn’t seem feasible to me to try to plan decades into the future. I accepted long ago that I wouldn’t live past 40, so why…

A pandemic meets a life-changing medication. It sounds like the beginning of a modern love story. Last year, a film came out about two teenagers with CF who fall in love. If you’ve been even tangentially…

My last column, a letter to my younger self, was written before the pandemic. When the world first began to realize the havoc wreaked by COVID-19, I predicted I would be reading and writing more than ever.