Caitlin Hysted-Adams (The Emmett Army)

Great Strides is a fantastic annual event that helps to raise much needed awareness for people living with cystic fibrosis.

We're walking in honour of Emmett. He's a brilliant, smart, hilarious 5 year old who wants to be Paleontologist when he’s older. Or he wants to work on a Recycling Truck. Noble, but perhaps not the best idea given the whole CF thing… We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. We're determined that he get the chance to grow up and dig for dinos. Peep his little face in the picture from when he met his Dino-hero, Andy Day. Heaven.

CF is a hard mistress - we've spent the whole year (his first as a tenacious Prep at ‘big school’) battling virus after virus, which has seen his disease progress further than we ever hoped, while also taking a toll on him, mentally, as he starts to understand that not all kids his age face the same daily challenges.

I’m setting this page up from the Royal Children’s Hospital, where we’re currently undertaking a brutal multi-treatment regime as a quarantined patient for two weeks, to try to give him the best chance to get on top of the constant set-backs. We want him to be as healthy as possible before potentially being given the green light to trial Trikafta next year.

We cannot do any of it without the support of our family, friends and wider community. Please help up raise money and awareness to support Emmett and all other salty warriors. Pretty please.

Get involved! Get your friends involved! Hey, I’ll take your enemies too! Ask your family members, colleagues, housemates, dentists, posties, waxers, delivery drivers, lollipop ladies and local politicians to join in the fun! Awareness leads to funding, which leads to research, which could lead to drastically improving the life of the most brilliant little person who is currently hooked up to about 5 different machines that go ‘ping’. Join the Emmett Army and make the future brighter for our little guy.