Posts by: Brad Dell

Brad Dell

Brad Dell is a deaf 25-year-old with cystic fibrosis. Originally from Hawaii, he received a double-lung transplant from University of California at San Francisco in January 2017. When not testing out his new lungs with exercise or reading comics, he's president of the Lung Transplant Foundation's NorCal chapter and head of columns at BioNews Services.

February 19, 2019February 18, 2019

Brad Dell: The Man Without Fear, Almost

Columns, Victorious - a Column by Brad Dell

Imagine how much easier cystic fibrosis (CF) would be if we didn’t have fears. What if we stared death in the eye and laughed? Age 23 was destined to ... Read more

February 12, 2019February 8, 2019

A Life Intimate with Death Is Not a Life Deprived of Beauty

Columns, Victorious - a Column by Brad Dell

I gaze through a frosted window on a mountaintop near Lake Tahoe. It’s a church youth group retreat. The students play in the snow, sledding and laughing. I’m sipping ... Read more

February 5, 2019February 14, 2019

My CF Symptoms Have Made Easy Bullying Targets

Columns, Victorious - a Column by Brad Dell

Editor’s note: This column discusses suicide. Sometimes, the day is raw, a knife grinding round and round and round in my gut. The day also almost feels like fiction; a thing ... Read more

January 29, 2019February 5, 2019

Children Teach Us How to Love People with Health Conditions and Disabilities

Columns, Victorious - a Column by Brad Dell

A running joke among my friends is that “Brad hates kids.” Maybe I did. I could blame that on my obsession with having adult friends as a teen — in ... Read more

January 22, 2019February 7, 2019

What Storm Drain Adventures Taught Me About CF Treatments

Columns, Victorious - a Column by Brad Dell

I have a story for you. In my teens, I often ditched CF treatments to explore storm drains beneath my Hawaii suburban neighborhood. When entering the concrete tunnels (maybe ... Read more

January 15, 2019January 21, 2019

Transplant Is Horrendous in the Beginning — You’re Not Abnormal

Columns, Victorious - a Column by Brad Dell

On the night of Jan. 15, 2016, nurses rolled me in for surgery. I rolled out on Jan. 16 with a donor’s lungs. It’s been two years packed with ... Read more

January 8, 2019January 15, 2019

My Trip to Hawaii Symbolizes My Victory Over Death by CF

Columns, Victorious - a Column by Brad Dell

A friend sat with me above heaven, a sapphire ocean embracing two lush islands and the greater island beneath our butts — Oahu. On that mountaintop, I rambled about ... Read more

December 4, 2018November 30, 2018

The Toon Trauma Triggers

Columns, Victorious - a Column by Brad Dell

It’s the happiest place in the world. Disneyland. I am afraid. Trembling, I slip deep down into the plastic seat molded into a massive seashell on wheels. The darkness ... Read more

November 20, 2018November 20, 2018

The Powerless Car and the Powerful Dad

Columns, Victorious - a Column by Brad Dell

I parked outside a library, where I’d planned to work for the day, at 7 a.m. in freezing 40-degree weather (I was raised in Hawaii). The library wouldn’t open ... Read more

November 13, 2018January 9, 2019

In Defense of ‘Five Feet Apart’ — Sort of

Columns, Victorious - a Column by Brad Dell

The cystic fibrosis community gets buzzing at the news of a successful Vertex trial or when a well-respected researcher even casually mentions the word “marijuana.” When a trailer for ... Read more

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