So, last Sunday, my mom, basschica, and I walked in the breast cancer 5K in Philadelphia.

This Saturday, basschica and I are walking the Great Strides 10K in Valley Forge for the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation.

You might be a little familiar with CF, because Cole (from the much neglected Night Fugues thread of comics) was born with it. It’s a terrible thing to inflict a person with, even a fictional one, but they say to write what you know. What I know is that my husband also has Cystic Fibrosis, along with CF-related diabetes.

I’m not going to wax poetic on the consequences. The quick version is that this is a life-shortening disease that screws up every cell in your body. The two most obvious results are extreme congestion of the lungs, and disruption of how your pancreas is supposed to work (resulting in an inability to break down food for digestion, and often diabetes.) If you want to read about the effects of CF, read this article (which is about the bell curve in medicine but gives a very good outline of how CF works). And then, of course, there’s The Cystic Fibrosis Foundation website, which has another ton of information.