I have begun a new, educational phase in my life: I’m working to become a patient advocate. Honestly, I’d never thought about patient advocacy until I was diagnosed with pulmonary fibrosis in December 2019. But it became extremely important to me when I realized that my…
Living With PF Has Inspired Me to Become a Patient Advocate
A test by Veracyte can be used to predict which patients with interstitial lung diseases (ILDs), including idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF), are more likely to experience progressive decline in their lung function, according to new data. Called the Envisia Genomic Classifier, the test works by identifying the genomic…
Greetings from Griefville. This column comes in three parts. Part 1: Grief is the worst Five years ago, I lost my cousin Charlie to lung cancer. He went to the emergency room with what he thought was pneumonia, and six weeks later, he was gone. It was a cold, dark…
The benefits of mindfulness are becoming more prevalent in literature. A quick search on social media or Google will reveal not only the importance of practicing mindfulness regularly, but also an abundance of self-led practice videos and articles about the topic. However, I wish the benefits of mindfulness for those…
The cellular aging of a group of cells called alveolar type 2 pneumocytes — which work to promote airway stability, and play a key role in lung repair after injury — may be responsible for driving pulmonary fibrosis (PF). That’s according to new findings from a team led by…
Those who follow my column know that one of my passions is cooking. It always has been. My wife, Susan, and I usually eat meals I prepare using little to no prepackaged ingredients. Dinner usually included wine for me. But what I can eat and drink changed on July…
The first patient has been enrolled in a Phase 3 clinical trial of Tyvaso (treprostinil) inhalation solution for patients with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF), according to the therapy’s developer, United Therapeutics. Called TETON 2 (NCT05255991), the trial will evaluate the treatment’s efficacy against a placebo in about…
Learning to live with a chronic illness is the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my young adult life. It’s stressful mentally, financially, socially, and emotionally. That’s in addition to the difficult physical challenges. Sometimes that stress manifests in ways I’m not proud of. Since my diagnosis of idiopathic…
I have a weight problem. But the bigger problem is that no one believes that I don’t choose to be this way. I’m an overweight, middle-aged woman fighting pulmonary fibrosis (PF) and going through menopause. As such, it takes double the effort to lose weight — especially since…
How many times have you heard someone start a story with “before the pandemic”? It has become a common refrain for the past two-plus years. While my idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) and a pandemic don’t make good bedfellows, they joined forces to eliminate one of our passions, travel. Before…
