Columns

Identifying and Reducing IPF-related Stress in My Life

At some point in everyone’s lives, we feel overwhelmed by the pressure to perform, whether it’s getting good grades at school, excelling at playing an instrument, or receiving a promotion at work. Many of these are normal pressures one expects throughout their lives. However, patients with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF),…

How Much Risk Can Pulmonary Fibrosis Patients Mitigate?

The world must learn to address our widespread anxiety about the ongoing health crisis. As a patient living with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF), a life-threatening lung disease that makes me increasingly vulnerable to respiratory infections, I’m familiar with this anxiety. But life must continue, and it’s necessary to find a…

Lung Transplant Memories: Greatest Hits

I’ve been going through a second (Third? Fourth?) wave of grief for all things pre-pandemic. I am still mourning things that once brought me joy but are currently off-limits — rugby, concerts, being a wedding photographer, and date night out, to name a few things. I’m still hurting…

My Hardest Days as My Mom’s Caregiver

Two weeks after my mom, Holly’s, double-lung transplant, she was discharged from the hospital. Although she was weak, she was walking, talking, eating, and, best of all, breathing on her own. After three months on a ventilator, the transplant brought her back to life.

It’s Time to Stop Stigmatizing the IPF Cough

The dry, persistent cough associated with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) is arguably the most difficult symptom of this life-threatening lung disease. Pulmonary fibrosis is defined simply as scarring in the lung, which always is progressive in patients with IPF. Unfortunately, there is nothing simple about this disease, and the scarring…