Brad Dell: The Man Without Fear, Almost
Imagine how much easier cystic fibrosis (CF) would be if we didn’t have fears. What if we stared death in the eye and laughed? Age 23 was destined to 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
From kicker to hand-holder: Being brave despite cystic fibrosis
As a child I was a kicker, the type no nurse wants to be near when wielding needles and throat swabs. Eventually I’d relax my shrieking when Mom or Dad held my hand and…
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A Life Intimate with Death Is Not a Life Deprived of Beauty
I gaze through a frosted window on a mountaintop near Lake Tahoe. It’s a church youth group retreat. The students play in the snow, sledding and laughing. I’m sipping Earl Grey while…
My CF Symptoms Have Made Easy Bullying Targets
Editor’s note: This column discusses suicide. Sometimes, the day is raw, a knife grinding round and round and round in my gut. The day also almost feels like fiction; a thing I’d prefer to…
Children Teach Us How to Love People with Health Conditions and Disabilities
A running joke among my friends is that “Brad hates kids.” Maybe I did. I could blame that on my obsession with having adult friends as a teen — in comparison…
What Storm Drain Adventures Taught Me About CF Treatments
I have a story for you. In my teens, I often ditched CF treatments to explore storm drains beneath my Hawaii suburban neighborhood. When entering the concrete tunnels (maybe 15 feet…
Transplant Is Horrendous in the Beginning — You’re Not Abnormal
On the night of Jan. 15, 2016, nurses rolled me in for surgery. I rolled out on Jan. 16 with a donor’s lungs. It’s been two years packed with…
My Trip to Hawaii Symbolizes My Victory Over Death by CF
A friend sat with me above heaven, a sapphire ocean embracing two lush islands and the greater island beneath our butts — Oahu. On that mountaintop, I rambled about finding…
The Toon Trauma Triggers
It’s the happiest place in the world. Disneyland. I am afraid. Trembling, I slip deep down into the plastic seat molded into a massive seashell on wheels. The darkness of the…
The Powerless Car and the Powerful Dad
I parked outside a library, where I’d planned to work for the day, at 7 a.m. in freezing 40-degree weather (I was raised in Hawaii). The library wouldn’t open for four more…
In Defense of ‘Five Feet Apart’ — Sort of
The cystic fibrosis community gets buzzing at the news of a successful Vertex trial or when a well-respected researcher even casually mentions the word “marijuana.” When a trailer for a fictional romance…
I’ve Allowed My Disease to Abuse My Energy
Well, it finally happened: Twenty-two months after my double-lung transplant, I finally got sick for the first time. I gotta say, with a suppressed immune system, illness isn’t so…
Why Are Our Doctors Not Discussing Herbal Supplements with Us?
The 2018 North American Cystic Fibrosis Conference (NACFC) in Denver was rad, huh? The Cystic Fibrosis Foundation (CFF) is making great strides in the inclusion of patient voices, which has…
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