Makes it all worth it

Here's an excerpt from an e-mail I received this morning stemming from Joshua's Law of 2005 and its 2007 folow-up to fund Tandem Mass Spectrometers for early detection of Cystic Fibrosis and 28 other conditions:

Were you the author/sponsor of HB 2428 (Act 1931 of 2005), which was referred to as Joshua’s Law? It initiated newborn screening for cystic fibrosis.

According to Arkansas Children’s Hospital, my infant daughter is the first child in Arkansas to have been diagnosed as a positive case thanks to the screening. While my wife and I are very concerned, we want to thank you for your efforts that led to the early discovery of our daughter’s illness. She is very healthy at this time, and because we caught it at birth, we are hopeful that we can keep her healthy until a cure is found.

Having been around children diagnosed with Cystic Fibrosis, I can tell you that there's nothing more inspiring than to see the determination of the families to deal and cope with the condition. I'm hopeful that early detection will help researchers and scientists develop new procedures to fight and eventually cure Cystic Fibrosis.