My Xtreme Hike Story

Dear Family and Friends,

On Saturday, June 8th, we will once again be participating in the Cystic Fibrosis Extreme Hike sponsored by the Massachusetts Chapter of the CF Foundation. This year, Jane will join a dedicated group of hikers to take a 26+ mile long trek through the Berkshires in western Massachusetts supporting this important cause.

As most of you are aware, our daughter Katie has CF. Cystic Fibrosis is something she deals with every day, though we are very fortunate that she remains healthy and actively involved in many activities of a typical twenty-two-year-old young woman. Katie is in her third year at Williams College where she is majoring in English and Psychology and enjoys her classes, spending time with friends, and playing on the Women's Ice Hockey team.

CF remains a daunting challenge for Katie and for us. The disease is a challenging one with no cure yet and unfortunately continues to claim lives way too early.

The continued good news, however, is that meaningful progress towards controlling this disease is in the works. Revolutionary new drugs are being introduced with hopes that these treatments will provide the corrector in the CF puzzle and will eventually make CF stand for CURE FOUND.

A few years ago, Katie started taking one of the new medicines, Trikafta from Vertex Pharmaceuticals, and it has had a very significant impact on keeping her healthy. She felt a noticable improvement within days of being on this medicine, her lung function is better than it has ever been and fingers crossed she hasn't had any major health issues. With this new medicine and others in the pipeline, excitement from doctors, scientists and caregivers around CF research has never been greater!

Central to this progress is the funding scientists, researchers, practioners and life sciences companies receive from the CF Foundation. Over the last seventeen years, thanks to your contributions, we have been able to directly contribute over $375,000+ to this cause!!! We remain eternally grateful to all of you for your extremely generous donations!

And we ask, once again, for your support of us and for this cause. It means more than we can express. Whenever we look at Katie, see how healthy she is, and consider the progress made in the fight against CF, we know that our team of family and friends are pivotal in all this.

If you would like to join us in this effort, please click on the Donate to Me button. If you have friends or family members who might want to contribute, please feel free to share our effort and Katie’s story with them. We welcome any and all who would be willing to support this cause.

Please know how grateful we are for your support of our family and of the CF Foundation.

Warmest regards,

Jane and Steve Armstrong