Brad Dell,  —

Six months ago, if I had been tied to a very uncomfortable chair and tortured for weeks while interrogators screamed, “What is your greatest fear?” the only things I could have come up with would have been maybe … centipedes. Or dying in a hospital bed. Or maybe that the…

I don’t write much about my work at BioNews Services, which publishes Cystic Fibrosis News Today. I guess doing so seems a bit awkward since I’m a senior director at the company. In my gig, I head the columns division, which publishes patient and caregiver voices across dozens of rare…

Rare disease-themed videos glowed on a large screen before an audience of people in wheelchairs, with crutches, and bearing oxygen tanks this Nov. 9 and 10 in San Francisco. Disorder: The Rare Disease Film Festival strives to eventually host a film about every one of the nearly 7,000 rare…

In my senior year of college, I wanted to be just like Dad. He’s a courageous traveler who has filled many passports and has eaten all sorts of weird foods. The problem was that traveling kind of scared me. No, it really scared me. It seemed like every plane…

My head is in the clouds right now. I took a heavy sleeping aid about half an hour ago, and wooh, that stuff hits fast and hard. The sleeping aid has become necessary some nights. I don’t know how to sleep when my phone keeps buzzing, buzzing, buzzing. I pick…

When I met Alexander, he was thin, his nose bled a lot, and he had tubes in his ears. I was a lonely first-grader fresh to Hawaii, and just as thin and malfunctioning as the brother I didn’t yet know. How could I ever adequately thank the teacher…

In the days after I got new lungs, I’d pray for the healing to move faster so I could get on with life. I’d stand in front of a mirror and stare at the transplantation scars that cracked my chest as they shifted from blazing red to…

Hi, my name is Brad Dell, and I have clinical anxiety disorder. Well, disorders. Three types. My generalized anxiety disorder is well-documented in my columns. It’s plagued me since sixth grade, beginning when I’d lie in bed at night, sweaty and staring at the glowy star stuck to my…

Bradley was a dramatic kid. I’d sit up in bed at night, unable to lie down because it made me cough, and wonder whether Prometheus ever became used to having his liver pecked out each day. I concluded it wouldn’t be much of a curse if he got used…

“You need space at the table for five wheelchairs?”  The waitress’s eyes exploded from her skull, shocked to the degree I’d expect if I were to ask that she seat five grizzly bears. When making the reservation at the restaurant, I said…