Brad Dell is a Deaf 27-year-old with cystic fibrosis. He received a double-lung transplant from UC San Francisco in January 2017, then cochlear implants nine months later. He now lives in Hawaii, where he was raised. Usually he's traveling the world, chugging coffee, mentoring college students, or studying theology. Otherwise, he's working as the director of columns at BioNews, the publisher of CF News Today. (OK, he's still drinking coffee while he works.) He writes to undo the taboo surrounding lung transplantation. Catch him on Instagram at @coffee.cats_I’m flyin’ high. Or maybe flyin’ buzzed. My transplant docs say “drink only in moderation,” and I am, smuggling sips via a straw tucked into my N99 mask. It’s a pathetically tiny plastic cup of white wine, but evidently, I can’t handle much. Don’t judge. I know people…
Confession: I failed kindergarten. It was open house night and my teacher showed my parents a line of class self-portraits. There were probably some overly large heads and outlandish skin colors, but you’d be able to tell they were drawings of humans. Then my parents saw mine: a…
It starts with chemicals too small to see. Too little of this, too much of that. An imbalance. It becomes a dulled personality. A mixture of confusion and self-doubt morphing to disinterest. A void. It becomes feeling awake while asleep and feeling asleep while awake. It becomes…
I’m dead-beat. Bone-tired. Wasted. But I ain’t dead-dead and I ain’t lung-tired. And with my lung transplant, I guess you could say I’m recycled, rather than wasted. Maybe these jokes don’t make sense. I am exhausted, after all. My glasses are battered, and so are my shoes. I…
Mom never had to force me to eat my veggies. Matter of fact, she tried to force me to eat less of them. There was nothing quite as refreshing as coming home from a stressful day of middle school and popping open a can of black-eyed peas or a…
Moonlight twinkled off Eagle Scouts’ accomplishment pins (earned for demonstrations of helpfulness, generosity, and loyalty) as they wound rope around my friend and me — tying it off with a knot perfect enough to merit yet another accomplishment pin. Sweaty pits and unbrushed teeth polluted lake air that…
Spring 2017 It was a historic rainfall in Silicon Valley, the likes not seen since the days of Noah and his big boat. Los Gatos Creek spilled over and the neighborhood electricity blew out — a true tragedy in Tech Titan Valley. Mom sparked candles perfumed with…
I breathed 23 years of invisible illness before retching tan-green Silly Putty into city trash bins while leashed to a bulky, wheeled, metallic canister of oxygen. Twenty-three years of rotting beneath my skin before the disease turned inside-out. All eyes were on me as I puked, a…
What is victory for us? I know we crave a cure above all, but what is attainable in the meantime? When I began this column, titled “Victorious,” I viewed victory as a single objective: positivity. Living joyfully despite this horrific illness. And yes, I still think that is…
“A childhood disease.” That’s what they called cystic fibrosis back in my day. (Man, that makes me sound old. But that’s kinda the point of this column.) A childhood disease yet we grow old so fast. Scarred souls, battered bodies. Maybe death before our…
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