Meet Shannon Price
APRIL 2, 2021
My name is Shannon Price. I’m incredibly passionate about my wonderful family, my dogs Apple and Sammy, cooking, movies, music, reading, and being outdoors.
While all of these things fill my soul, they are interspersed around my daily cystic fibrosis (CF) treatments that are incredibly time consuming, but the very reason why I am still alive today.
I was first diagnosed with cystic fibrosis in June 1975 – around two months after I was born.
The diagnosis was particularly painful for my mother – who experienced a loss as a result of cystic fibrosis on her side of the family. So she became incredibly eager to learn more about the disease, and have some guidance on what she should do next. For the next 10 years, our family became entrenched in the cystic fibrosis world – from fundraising, advocating, awareness campaigns, hospital visits and so forth.
Growing up, I always heard statistics about the life expectancy of people with cystic fibrosis at campaigns and events. I told myself, “that’s not going to be me”. But as I got older and my lungs became sicker, the reality of how vicious cystic fibrosis is became clearer. So I created a new mindset of “Don’t limit myself because of the stats. Just fight!”. To this day, it has become my mantra.
Over the years, I have been so blessed to be surrounded by such incredible people, including my husband and daughter, my parents, sisters, in-laws, friends both with CF and without. I get a lot of strength from being loved by this awesome group of people. They are always there for me and they bring such an outpouring of love, support and involvement in my life and journey through cystic fibrosis, that really inspires me to keep going.
Living with cystic fibrosis for so long has taught me a lot about myself and this disease. Day-to-day, living with cystic fibrosis means hours of treatment, medications, health management and just trying to stay as well as possible. It can mean facing sickness every now and then but never giving up. It can also mean facing heartbreak and grieving the loss of countless friends with cystic fibrosis who lost their battle.
But through this disease, I’ve also learned that life is so precious, and too short to sweat the small stuff, and that family is everything.
Since creating my first Walk to Make Cystic Fibrosis History team, Shanni’s Stompers, in 2003, my family and friends have helped our team grow in both size and fundraising dollars. Today, we’ve raised over $420,000 in our fight against cystic fibrosis.
With over 18 years of Walks now under my belt, I can confidently say that while the Walk is about raising money and awareness about cystic fibrosis, I believe that it also offers participants the opportunity to feel empowered to make change. There is a warm feeling of community and uniting under a common cause and being utterly moved by loved ones who give their time and money. The feeling of happiness after each Walk campaign is priceless
As well, “going further” is a perfect phrase to me. I think every person with cystic fibrosis can identify with these words as it relates to persevering under a relentless illness. It also implies success. We’ve gone so far, we’ve come a long way, we’ve seen the impact in research and treatment, now go further until we can live in a world without cystic fibrosis!
For over 15 years, the CF community has come together every year at the Walk to Make Cystic Fibrosis History, united in the pursuit of a cure. Due to the ongoing global situation caused by COVID-19, the walk will remain virtual format in an effort to keep our community safe.