Columns

Writing “Make Every Breath Count” for you each week is an opportunity for me to share my journey, which is a form of therapy for me. It’s an outlet to process my experiences with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) and receiving a bilateral lung transplant. Recently, my column…

Some of the most important interactions in our professional lives do not occur at work, at the boardroom table, or even in an office. Often, they occur during brief introductions or chance meetings. The challenge for business leaders regardless of industry is how to briefly explain to someone what they…

Note: This column describes the author’s own experiences with Dupixent (dupilumab). Not everyone will have the same response to treatment. Consult your doctor before starting or stopping a therapy. Idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) is progressive, which means this lung disease inevitably worsens, making it increasingly difficult for patients to…

The idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) journey is, if nothing else, full of surprises. Some of those surprises come in the form of comorbidities, which could be a result of age, a suppressed immune system, or simply luck of the draw. The comorbidities we face are as unique as we…

When is a larger number the better choice? It depends. Recently, I’ve noticed some people in the pulmonary fibrosis (PF) community embracing numbers in studies without understanding their context. In terms of dollars, bigger numbers are better if you’re talking about savings, but smaller numbers are better if you’re…

How much of a powerhouse in the world of rare disease medicine do you have to be to effect change? Advocacy is tough, especially when you’re trying to influence organizations that are responsible for federal policy. So where to start? How about starting with a single voice? The biblical story…

Despite having a support group and talking with others who have the same condition, I haven’t gleaned everything I need to know about pulmonary fibrosis. I’m still walking in the shadows of this disease, trying to find a semblance of my pre-diagnosis self. Someone in my support group asked,…

Last April, COVID-19 took up residence in our house again — or so we thought. My husband, Jonny, had a raging set of symptoms, and I had a sore throat. Our at-home tests gave mixed results. After a week of quarantining, our PCR tests came back negative. Negative?…

Have you ever experienced a period in your life when nothing seemed to go right? While that may seem an odd question for those in the rare disease community, in my case, sadly, it’s not rhetorical. June has altered some of the best-laid plans, and that trend has flowed into…

July is a month of celebration at our house. Though it begins with the Fourth of July, my personal “Independence Day” is on July 10 — the day I received a double-lung transplant in 2021. It’s a celebration tempered with reverence for the beautiful lungs my donor gifted me.