A friend of ours has a couple of family members with Cystic Fibrosis.  It’s a terrible, scary disease that affects the tiniest of folks, and weirdly, those folks affected can’t hang out together.  (I hope to get some photographs of the sweet little kids of Team O’Connell and post them here on my blog… next week)

Here’s an overview from the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation:

What Is Cystic Fibrosis?

Cystic fibrosis is an inherited chronic disease that affects the lungs and digestive system of about 30,000 children and adults in the United States (70,000 worldwide). A defective gene and its protein product cause the body to produce unusually thick, sticky mucus that:

• clogs the lungs and leads to life-threatening lung infections; and
• obstructs the pancreas and stops natural enzymes from helping the body break down and absorb food.

In the 1950s, few children with cystic fibrosis lived to attend elementary school. Today, advances in research and medical treatments have further enhanced and extended life for children and adults with CF. Many people with the disease can now expect to live into their 30s, 40s and beyond.

Strangely, two people with the disease can actually make each other *worse* if they are near each other.  Obviously this makes it hard to share support with each other.  Luckily, people that do *not* have the disease can hang out and support those affected all they want.

Anyway – like I said, a friend of ours has two little family members affected with this terrible beast, and therefore their (very large) Irish family has taken up the cause (Team O’Connell!) and organizes events every year to raise money for research and a cure.

Tonight we’re joining the party and rockin’ out for the cause!

My husband’s Naperville law firm donated the Candy Bar for this event (photos to come later), and I’ll be taking some photos at the upcoming Walk this summer.

To find out more about Cystic Fibrosis, you can click that link or type in https://www.cff.org in to your browser.