I shoulda seen it coming. (That’s what I always say in hindsight, once it hits.) Maybe I shoulda known when five people at church told me I look “really, really tired.” Perhaps the signs were there when I purchased five melancholy poetry books despite my crippled budget. Or…
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.
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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 called me brave. The nurses were then more warmly received. To be safe, they came bearing…
We sat in pristine sands shadowed by titanic sentries dubbed The Twelve Apostles. At the southern end of Australia, I assume they guard against Antarctic penguins, like how The Wall in “Game of Thrones” defended against White Walkers. Maybe an invasion of penguins wouldn’t be bad. “I…
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 my last year on earth. Hospital staff had that awkward talk with my family and girlfriend…
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 scrawling notes into a journal — combined with snowfall, it’s a recipe for sentimentality. I glimpse…
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 fade into my life annals among the other bad things, mere pen strokes that have long…
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 to them, children seemed so naive. So yeah, people would always find me rolling my eyes…
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 in height and width), they’re so dark it feels like you’re stepping into nothing, a vortex. Many…
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 awe. I love my post-transplant life. I’ve traveled all over, picked up new passions, and…
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 meaning in all things. Lanikai Pillbox Hike. (Photo by Brad Dell)…
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 man-made cavern is interrupted by a video on the ceiling that makes it feel like I…
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 hours, and I was too tired to drive elsewhere, so I turned on my car’s heater…
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 movie about cystic fibrosis was released, our community was more of an angry swarm than…
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