My brother James works all day on rooftops, carrying solar panels the size of refrigerator doors up ladders and bolting them to the joists. He pays his own mortgage and buys his own groceries. He buys food for his dog, Sadie. He buys responsible things like first aid kits and extension cords. Every couple of weeks, he comes home from the other side of Houston to visit us. It was just a few years ago that James was in a hospital bed on a heavy regimen of antibiotics, steroids, and who-knows-how-many other "remedies" that seemed to hurt him as much as they helped. He struggled to keep meat on his bones. He struggled to breath. The James I know today is very different from the James I knew back then. No longer is he the snotty teenager in the next bedroom, whose favorite sound in the world was his kid sister shrieking. This change is nice for me. But more than what he's not, it's even nicer to see what he now is...a healthy man with his whole life ahead of him–a life as long as it ought to be. James gets to be a man because of a drug called Trikafta, which I can only describe as a "miracle drug", because there's really no other word for it. As far as anyone can tell, Trikafta has pretty much cured James' cystic fibrosis, a genetic illness that, several decades ago would have killed him by the age of five. Unlike other medicines that help millions and millions of people, Trikafta wouldn't exist if it were only up to the drug companies, because there's not enough money to be made from CF patients, who are rare. Trikafta exists because of a determined group of people who care a lot, the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation. The CFF has saved a lot of lives by raising money and funding research. Their work saved my brother, and that gave us back hope. Their future work will save other people with mutations similar to James'. The CFF has vowed to continue funding research until every last person is cured, and their track record to date promises that they'll be successful. In January 2023, I'll be running the Houston Half Marathon on behalf of the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation. I want to run a half marathon because it hurts. I want to struggle to breathe, because James had no choice but to struggle. I want to overcome hardship in my own, very small way, to honor others who have overcome so much more. I want everyone I know to learn about Cystic Fibrosis, and what we are doing to cure it forever. And I want to invite everyone I know to support our cause, to help us fund future lifesaving research, just like people years ago funded Trikafta studies, and gave my brother back his life. I hope you'll donate to our cause.