Why the Community Protests: A Fight for Life Beyond Our Disease
With CF, there are fights to live taking place in the hospital. And then there are fights to live taking place in the streets and in political offices. Germs will always be…
Victorious — Brad Dell
Brad Dell is Deaf and was diagnosed with cystic fibrosis at 2 months old in 1993. He received a double-lung transplant from UC San Francisco in January 2017, then cochlear implants nine months later. He lives in Hawaii, where he was raised. Usually he’s traveling the world, chugging coffee, or devouring books. He also pastors Restoration Community Church and serves as the director of community content at Bionews, this site’s publisher.
Featured Post
Am I making excuses or simply explaining my reality with CF?
I’ve been trying to write more. I promise. But my tacrolimus dose is pretty up there, and it’s getting on my nerves. Literally. Nerve pain from the medication, an immunosuppressant used in…
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One Year Ago Today, Surgeons Hit the Reset Button on My Life
Jan. 14, 2017 was the worst day of anxiety I’d had in the five months of waiting for my lung transplant. A frantic, nearly palpable tension was in the air. After…
Addiction Is a Real Risk
“I can give something to relax you,” the doctor says. I stiffly nod, neck taut and arm outstretched for an arterial blood gas test. The doctor holds up a syringe —…
Cystic Fibrosis Patients Deserve Employment Opportunities
The world isn’t fair. Anyone born with a genetic disease like cystic fibrosis before they’ve even had a chance to earn bad karma knows that. But that doesn’t…
What Healthy People Don’t Realize About the CF Life
A couple weeks ago, I wrote about misunderstandings within the CF community. But what about misunderstandings projected into the community from the outside? If you’re a non-CFer, keep these things in…
‘You’re So Lucky’: Respect Each Victory, and Know It Comes at a Price
“You’re so lucky.” I’ve heard and read that all too often over the past year. I’m lucky I lived to my 20s with cystic fibrosis, I’m…
Don’t Let Our Differences Divide the Cystic Fibrosis Community
“Cystic fibrosis is a genetic lung disease.” That’s an accurate statement, sure. But it doesn’t reflect the diversity of patient cases — the myriad mutations that cause each case of CF, and…
I Once Feared Numbers, But Now I Love Them
I’ve gone through life afraid of numbers. Not just math, although I’m really terrible at that. Numbers like “37”: the life expectancy of someone with CF, a number that was…
I Have Cystic Fibrosis and I Am Traumatized
I walk through a football stadium. I catch a whiff of the cotton candy and am smacked back to every procedure I’ve had, breathing in the stale cotton candy-scented anesthetic before…
I Love My Post-Transplant Life
I won’t lie. The first two months after my double-lung transplant were rough. I wasn’t in much pain, but my body was struggling to adjust to the cornucopia of transplant drugs,…
What the Lung Transplant Evaluation Process is Really Like
Last week I wrote about how lung transplantation isn’t the Boogeyman I once thought it was. After I had done my research, I finally considered being evaluated for a transplant.
Lung Transplant Is Not the Boogeyman I Imagined
There are two great fears in a person’s young life: “The Talk” and the Boogeyman. The Transplant Talk is an intertwining of the two for many with cystic fibrosis. My dad was…
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