Steps toward a cure
By Alyssa Meier
Editor
For the third year in a row, people will gather Washburn, ND and walk a few miles to fight for newborn babies.
The annual Fred Five 5k run/walk will be returning to the community for the third year on Sept. 27, with the proceeds going toward research to fight Neonatal Hemochromatosis.
The walk was started in 2013 by Stacy Boeshans, a local teacher, coach and mother. Boeshans created the event as a way to bring the community together, to fight a disease and to honor her firstborn son.
Boeshans’ son Fred was born on Sept. 28, 2003 in Billings, Mont. Her pregnancy had been normal, delivery perfect. There was no reason to expect anything to be wrong. But Fred soon started to show signs of distress. Boeshans was woken up by nurses within 24 hours of his birth and told they had taken her newborn baby to the NICU.
“They had run blood tests and his blood sugars were so low that he almost should not have been conscious,” Boeshans said. “And it didn’t make sense why. And that started the whole downward spiral of ‘What’s wrong with Fred?’”
