Victorious — Brad Dell

Editor’s note: The following contains spoilers of the film “Sound of Metal.” I yearn for the days I drew close, very close, to death. Each thought, emotion, and sight weighed heavy. And each breath was precious; who knew…

It’s not my birthday or my lung transplant anniversary or anything. But today, I’m thinking about being old-ish. I’m thinking about how Mom realized my life expectancy in college biology, and how I realized it in middle school…

I’ve been in love. It was magnificent. It also hurt. Love belongs among the most powerful building blocks of our cosmos. Passion drives creation, compassion nurtures it. Blend the two for love. Tragically, I’ve found that adding a sick…

I’ve often written that “the disease itself isn’t the worst part, rather it’s the …” The medication side effects, the childhood trauma, the dread, the blah, blah, blah. Today, it’s the social exclusion. Post-transplant, I’m not very excluded.

At the start of November, I was infected with COVID-19. My heart rammed repeatedly and rapidly against my sternum, which had been broken four years earlier by lung transplant surgeons. I was dizzy, reeling from the local health department’s…

Two months ago, I watched myself die, then get resurrected on television. Sort of. I used to interview fascinating people in Hawaii for local magazines. I’d never imagined I’d be profiled, much less through a documentary. But there…

People often declare my life to be stranger than fiction. (It’s true, and it’s both a blessing and a curse.) Usually, that observation is followed by an urging for me to write a memoir. I reply that I’ve tried,…

I should’ve died years ago, but I’m too damn competitive. A doctor said I’d cross my high school graduation stage in a wheelchair, toting supplemental oxygen. “Challenge accepted,” I thought. Weeks later, I walked with my head held high…

I had imagined that everything would move at light speed once I got the call for my lung transplant. Instead, it was a peaceful wait of about 23 hours in the hospital. I pondered what I wanted my “last”…

In 2013, miles above the Pacific, flight attendants and passengers stared silently as a man yelled — literally yelled — at me for coughing too much. In meltdown mode, he didn’t care for my explanations that I have a…

Life is hard, ain’t it? Sometimes all you need is a long cry session over hibachi in Toronto. And so that’s exactly what I had with fellow Cystic Fibrosis News Today columnist Lara Govendo. She has a mental…

“I wish I had that problem!” If you’re pancreatic insufficient, you know what that dreaded joke is in response to. Gaining weight ain’t easy when your pancreas doesn’t function properly, your lungs and heart pump much too rapidly,…