Columns

Curveball is a baseball term, but it also can apply to life when something surprising or unexpected happens. It’s been several months since my last column, and in that time, life has thrown me a curveball. I’ve been constantly battling my illness, and so much has happened. I am…

I have a love-hate relationship with pulmonary rehabilitation. With rapidly declining lungs due to idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF), it’s hard to exercise. Despite this, exercise is one of the most important things a patient with IPF should be doing consistently, so I try to love it. I…

How is it December already? In the retail world, the holiday season seems to begin earlier every year. It felt like ads for Thanksgiving and Christmas started airing around Labor Day this year here in the United States. Last year, I noticed my thoughts turned to my donor family more…

Life is full of important reflections. As a child and teenager, I moved at lightning speed, never wanting to miss out on an opportunity. Since I was diagnosed with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) in 2016, I’ve been forced to slow down, as my declining lungs no longer allow…

The holiday season is upon us! Here in the United States, Thanksgiving was last week, and the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade heralded the arrival of Santa Claus. But November, for the past two years, has been a month of loss for me. COVID-19 and transplant In March 2020, the reality…

Being diagnosed with a chronic illness changes everything. In addition to the physical changes, patients endure emotional, mental, and social ones as well. This is especially true for those of us thrown into the chronic illness world as a young adult, when our brains have just finished developing but our…

The pulmonary fibrosis (PF) patient population would likely become unhinged without the oversight of our caregivers. They have one of the hardest roles in the PF community. When I was diagnosed with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) in January 2017, my wife, Susan, was sitting by my side. For…

Being short of breath is the worst feeling I’ve ever experienced. Sadly, it’s been getting progressively worse since I was diagnosed with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) in 2016. Shortness of breath, or dyspnea, is one of the most common IPF symptoms. It took 13 months of seeing…

Rail travel has long been shrouded in both mystery and romance. English novelist Agatha Christie famously wrote “Murder on the Orient Express,” a tale of intrigue involving one of her most famous characters, Hercule Poirot. American singer-songwriter Steve Goodman originally wrote and recorded “City of New Orleans,” a song about…

For all the time I’ve spent in my 31 years “sitting in the U-bend, thinking about death,” as Moaning Myrtle from the “Harry Potter” series says, facing the loss of a loved one hasn’t gotten any easier. In spite of all my pondering, reading, and writing on the subject of…