Over Homecoming weekend, while most students were out celebrating or welcoming back alumni, others were helping raise awareness for a rare degenerative disease.
Every year in Cincinnati around Halloween, the Cystic Fibrosis (CF) Foundation holds a 5K costume run through a dark cemetery to benefit someone from the local area with this disease. In this year’s twenty-third “Run Like Hell,” the honoree was Witt student Annie Page, ’16.
Being the honoree at this year’s event, Page had the opportunity to speak on behalf of her experiences with CF, thanking all the runners and walkers many times for participating. This year’s race welcomed 1,464 runners/walkers, raising $84,000 for the Cincinnati CF Foundation. The success of these types of events seem to be paying off, as they raised $20,000 more this year and had 191 more participants. When talking to Page, she said they are trying to get more adults involved in the organization to articulate for the CF community as they come closer to a cure.
Though Page looks like a beautifully healthy girl on the outside, she has been battling this life-threatening genetic disease that primarily affects the lungs and digestive system since she was three years old. This disease plagues an estimated 30,000 children and adults in the U.S.
Talking to Page about what her hopes are for the future, she said, “It was exciting to spread the word about CF around Witt’s campus, even if it was to just the few it reached on social media, and I would love to be able to take that a step further and make it campus-known.”
As a biology major with a minor in psychology, Page hopes to become a genetic counselor some day for kids with this disease and others like it, so she can teach them how to live with what they have.
