Luke McKenzie

My Great Strides Story

In July of 2022 our family of 6 became a family of 7 and changed forever. Not only was our little man born premature but he also popped on his genetic screening for possibly having a disease called Cystic Fibrosis. On August 31, 2022 we took our 1 month old baby boy to the Mountain State Cystic Fibrosis clinic for a sweat test. Like most families we assumed that the results would come back negative and we would leave Morgantown that day and return to our normal lives. Just a short time after the testing we went into a room in the clinic to hear the results and found out that our precious little man did in fact have cystic fibrosis.

At that time the only thing we could think about was how long was he going to live, what was his quality of life going to be, how were we going to handle 4 other kids ranging from 1 month old to 9 years and be able to provide him with everything he needed. Then Dr. Saif just one of the many INCREDIBLE providers at the Mountain State CF clinic answered our questions, gave us the information we needed, and did everything in his power to make sure we were informed but not overwhelmed. He told us that CF is still a serious disease but it doesn’t mean the same things it used to. Because of cutting edge research that is able to occur because of fundraisers such as this our baby boy could expect to live a relatively normal life with daily treatments and medications.

After a lot of tears we started our journey. Lincoln is now 19 months old, he is walking, jabbering, and doing all of the things you would expect of a 19 month old. Although, he has been medevac’d to WVU Medicine Children’s twice in his life because of various illness and complications, he has also been admitted other times and spent countless hours in the emergency room, rapid care, the CF clinic, and various other specialists but with daily inhaler usage, nebulizers, percussion therapy, medications, and modulators our little boy lives a relatively normal life.

Lincoln loves to be outside playing in the dirt, swinging on his swing, sliding down the slide, walking our neighborhood, playing with his big sisters and brother, and camping every chance we get.

Please consider supporting this walk. Although, Lincoln lives a relatively normal life there is still no cure for Cystic Fibrosis and we can’t stop until CF stands for cure found so no children or family ever has to suffer and live or die with this disease again.

Your support makes a difference.

By donating to my fundraising goal, you will help advance our mission for a cure for all. Please consider joining us and helping make CF stand for Cure Found.