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.
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 lung transplant management, has me…
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A surreal winter, huh? Pandemic pandemonium. Over and over. “I can’t believe we even have to think about this stuff. COVID-19 is like fiction.” It’s real. I write this during week three of self-isolation. I ain’t scared for myself.
I’m always promising people I’ll write a memoir … at some point. Once, I got 46,853 words deep before realizing that my writing style had evolved enough that, “Mmm, that draft is trash.” Recently, I gave it another jab.
I haven’t tasted much energy over the past month. Thanks to steroid withdrawal, I spend most of my time near home. It’s not all that bad, honestly, to sit around and do nothing. “Doing nothing” can be productive.
Since August, I’ve been irritable, in hermit mode (distressing for an extrovert!), a little depressed and unfulfilled, and having difficulty sleeping. Plus, I’ve been urinating about seven times nightly, which sounds funny but is a special kind of torture.
Loureen and I waited for our travel buddies to pass through airport security. Soon, we would be on a plane to Jordan, where we would provide various forms of support to Syrian refugees escaping civil war. Loureen, wise and…
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 ……
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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