Stay Healthy During Cold and Flu Season: 6 Helpful Tips for IPF Patients
In the years since my IPF diagnosis, I’ve became fearful of many things. Some of my fears came from thoughts I had buried deep inside my mind, which I didn’t dare speak about out loud, whereas other fears developed as a result of experience. One thing I wasn’t scared...
Feeling the Need for Control Since My IPF Diagnosis
It is an understatement to say that being diagnosed with a chronic illness causes everything to feel out of control for a patient and their family. The loss of control tends to happen in two phases: 1) the acute phase, which is everything that feels out of control...
How Setbacks From Exacerbations, Illness or Physical Regression Impact IPF Patients
Following my diagnosis of idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) in 2016, I was told by my physicians that this disease could progress in one of two ways. The first was that the fibrosis would progress rapidly and leave me short of breath and fatigued with a chronic...
Keeping Yourself Safe & Healthy While in Public: 4 Important Steps
Patients living with any type of compromised immune system or respiratory disease understand implicitly the importance of staying away from germs. The caveat is that despite our chronic illness, patients still have to run errands, travel, and be in public so the...
How IPF Can Complicate Dental Visits: 3 Suggestions to Ease Your Appointment
Idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) is a cruel disease, one that complicates many aspects of a patient’s life. Constantly feeling short of breath and exhausted is not for the faint of heart. It takes an enormous amount of strength and perseverance to live with IPF on...
Beyond the Physical: Different Ways Pulmonary Fibrosis Affects Patients
It is easy to assume that a disease characterized by fibrotic tissue in the lungs, preventing a patient’s ability to breathe, would affect them physically. This is a very basic description of a cruel, widely misunderstood lung disease called pulmonary fibrosis (PF)....
Listen: Help Us Spread the Word About IPF
In honor of Pulmonary Fibrosis Awareness Month, I’d like to tell you, in my own voice, what it’s been like living with a terminal lung disease as a young woman. Naturally, I felt very alone, unsettled, and isolated from my peers when I was diagnosed. Sharing about my...
Listen: Why PF Awareness Month Is Important To Me
In honor of Pulmonary Fibrosis Awareness Month, I’d like to tell you, in my own voice, what it’s been like living with a terminal lung disease as a young woman. Naturally, I felt very alone, unsettled, and isolated from my peers when I was diagnosed. Sharing about my...
Listen: Why I Chose To Write About My Experience
In honor of Pulmonary Fibrosis Awareness Month, I’d like to tell you, in my own voice, what it’s been like living with a terminal lung disease as a young woman. Naturally, I felt very alone, unsettled, and isolated from my peers when I was diagnosed. Sharing about my...