Rylee was diagnosed with Cystic Fibrosis at ten days old. The day she was born, nurses pricked her heel and caught tiny droplets of blood on a piece of paper. This paper was sent off to a lab. The results were then sent to our pediatrician’s office. We received the call that our daughter possibly had something called Cystic Fibrosis. At the time I had zero knowledge about CF, but was heartbroken by this label.

After confirming with a sweat chloride test (gold standard in diagnosing CF) the pulmonology team met with us. Life looked different. We Googled Cystic Fibrosis and the life expectancy was somewhere in the 40s. The statistics of survival rate stared us in the face. Our team reassured us, “each patient is different, don’t read the statistics, scientist are doing an amazing job creating drugs to help treat the buildup of mucus”. These words played over and over in our heads. At the time we didn’t know how Rylee’s life was going to be, we still don't but she's doing amazing because of an amazing medication.

Her pulmonology team informed us about a clinical trial for children that carry certain mutations. Rylee was able to enroll in the trial and started taking Kalydeco at five months old. At the time the medication was approved for children in the US to start taking at age one if they had certain CF mutations. The medication is now approved for children as young as one moth old. Rylee is now taking a different break through medication Trikafta.

Having a child with cystic fibrosis has been hard at times but as she’s grown we’ve also grown and have educated ourselves about CF. We have days that go by and we forget about her “label”.

One day a cure will be found because of the people who support CF research!