Illnesses and disability hold the power to evict us from the safe predictability of linear time, normal life stages, and progressive life trajectories. Instead, we are launched into a time that exists outside of conventional time: crip time. 

Historically used to oppress and stigmatize, the word crip has been reclaimed as an insider term by many individuals within the disability rights movement. Crip Time is a concept which refers to the way disabled and chronically ill people experience time (Kafer, 2013, Samuels, 2017). Contrary to a steady forward momentum, crip time jumps backwards and forwards, it stalls, accelerates and slows, and it’s utterly unpredictable. 

My concept of the therapeutic cusp is an extension of crip time. It’s a crip time that exists beyond the experience of any one individual, and beyond the lifespan of any individual experiencing it. The endless metamorphoses of our timelines has made time itself an elusive, nebulous enigma. 

The pandemic cracked open a new version of time for people with CF; one where we can continue to participate in and contribute to life during hospital stays. For those of us who can take it, Trikafta has changed time yet again. 

Because my life operates in crip time, I was still working on this project long after putting together the co-presence section. I decided to put this passing of time to use. Between a year and 18 months after taking our first dose of Trikafta, I recorded conversations in “the after” of this therapeutic milestone. 

Steve had family commitments and was not available to schedule a call. Health wise he is doing well, although Trikafta was not able to get him off oxygen at the time of writing. I did not record myself for this section of my research.