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.
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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July 28, 1 p.m. We’re laughing. Some of us literally poured blood, sweat, and tears to be there laughing. Transplant recipients, like me. Others thought they’d never see their loved ones laugh…
One year ago, I was six months post-lung transplant. I was still fumbling about, trying to sort out my new body and aspirations to help other CFers with my second chance at…
“Living On a Prayer” played as I pulled into an intersection. From the corner of my eye, I saw a car dart onto my street. A screech and a smash. T-boned, rammed into…
“It’s all come full circle,” I repeated, rather exhaustingly, about two dozen times over the past two weeks when visiting family in Florida. Exactly two years ago, my family learned we’d have…
On July 2, 2016, I awoke from a nightmare with a wheeze. In the movies, people awaken from nightmares with a gasp. But gasping takes air. I’d been suffocating for days. Days…
Part two of a series. Read part one. Last week, I wrote about how disheartened I felt that many lung transplant centers refuse to help cystic fibrosis patients with Mycobacterium abscessus…
At some point in the eighth grade in 2008, I drank some bad water. Later, I vomited and some of that yuck liquid aspirated into my lungs. That invasion…
After 37 hours of travel, I landed in Belgrade, Serbia. I hopped in a cab and rolled past rows of rusted relics — airplanes of various centuries, including the rotting wreckages of…
I’m flyin’ high. Or maybe flyin’ buzzed. My transplant docs say “drink only in moderation,” and I am, smuggling sips via a straw tucked into my N99 mask. It’s a pathetically tiny…
Confession: I failed kindergarten. It was open house night and my teacher showed my parents a line of class self-portraits. There were probably some overly large heads and outlandish skin colors, but…
It starts with chemicals too small to see. Too little of this, too much of that. An imbalance. It becomes a dulled personality. A mixture of confusion and self-doubt morphing to…
I’m dead-beat. Bone-tired. Wasted. But I ain’t dead-dead and I ain’t lung-tired. And with my lung transplant, I guess you could say I’m recycled, rather than wasted. Maybe these jokes don’t make…
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