November – the days are shorter, the weather generally turns colder and it’s a great time to reflect on all the things we are thankful for. The year 2022 brought opportunities for CF community awareness events throughout the calendar year and it was so much fun.

As I have shared, lung function is vital. Maddox does a vest treatment twice a day to be able to move all the gunk in his lungs. From here, he is able to cough it up so it doesn’t harbor bacteria. Maddox also participates in sports to be able to push his lungs to be able to expand and compress to be able to move the gunk around too. One of the sports that we are very thankful that Maddox has gravitated to is Karate. What a family they have been for Maddox (and Nick and I) ! We all know that at this point, Maddox is a tiny little dude compare to his peers (but now we have a better understanding of why). Until he has a massive growth spurt, a mommy fear is that he is going to be bullied. I want Maddox to have the confidence and skills to be able to stand up for himself. I can say in the time that Maddox has been attending karate, he has grown so much already. When the discussion came up if The Academy Martial Arts Leadership would be interested in providing a small donation, they took it to another level. I am grateful for them jumping in for 2022! I am hopeful we can continue this into 2023!

Team Maddox has built our presence at a local baseball venue for the past couple of years. A huge shout out to the Wisconsin Timber Rattlers as we have been a community spotlight for the past 3 years. The last two years have been on Ladies night. Maddox and Ollie love to hand out pinwheels, beads, leis and glow sticks at this event! We are scheduled to be back in 2023!

Team Maddox has been participating in the Great Strides walk for the past 6 years! This year as a Team we raised $5,600+ for this year’s walk and this year, the weather was horrible (pretty typical for a spring WI). Cold, windy and rainy. We did have a team presence show up! Thank you to those that braved the weather as Maddox and I were the guest speakers for the event this year.

New to the team this year, we attended a Green Bay Gamblers game as a community spotlight. For this event we handed out boom sticks and beads for everyone.

The blood, sweat and tears (ok more like emails, phone calls and social media posts) are to help drive awareness for what CF and Team Maddox are. We are all working to find a cure so CF’ers can continue to worry about their grades, their wish lists for Santa and not have to worry about blood draws and hospital stays.

To everyone that participated in 2022, we thank you for your continued support.

Keep an eye out for Team Maddox events in 2023 (which really isn’t that far away)!