Always in your corner.

On New Year’s Eve 2014, my wife Rebecca went into respiratory failure from cystic fibrosis. Doctors gave her days to weeks. She is still here. Help us fight for a cure, so no one else has to fight this hard.

Thank you. The 2026 Cincinnati Great Strides walk was in May. Gifts are still open.

Ray and Rebecca Poole smiling beside a hospital bell under a Transplant Center sign. Rebecca holds a sign that says Grateful, and Ray holds a Homeward Bound poster.
Going home after Rebecca’s kidney transplant, November 2024.

Where we stand

Updated this fall. The national team total includes the Xtreme Hike.

More than $140,000raised for the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation since 2013, across our own pages and the teams Ray has led. See the volunteer record.

Great Strides

Raised by Team Beccalicious

Cincinnati, 2026. Goal: .

National team and Xtreme Hike

Raised toward a goal

Includes from Team Beccalicious on the Palo Duro Canyon Xtreme Hike.

What’s a cornerman?

In the fighting world, the cornerman is the person who sits in your corner between rounds.

A good one knows his fighter: her strengths, her weaknesses, and how to get the best out of her. He sees the fight from an angle she can’t. But there is one thing a cornerman cannot do, and that is fight the fight for her.

I’ve been in Rebecca’s corner since we met at the University of Connecticut in 1998.

“I do not have cystic fibrosis and I cannot take away her pain, so the best I can do is to support her and be in her corner.”From the Preface of Lessons from a CF Cornerman

What happened

They told me Rebecca would never breathe on her own without a double lung transplant. Then they said she was too sick to qualify for one.

172 days

on a ventilator after respiratory failure on December 31, 2014. She spent 219 days in the hospital.

5

transplant hospitals said no, one after another, before the Pittsburgh program listed her.

June 18

In 2015, Rebecca received a double lung transplant at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center.

Rebecca’s story was also featured in Woman’s World magazine on March 19, 2018. See the photos and the full timeline.

Book cover of Lessons from a CF Cornerman by Raymond L. Poole, showing a man in a leather jacket standing at a hospital room door.

The book

Lessons from a CF Cornerman: 38 lessons I learned during my wife’s illness and lung transplant.

Independent Author Network Book of the Year, First Place sealReaders Favorite Book Award Winner sealWishing Shelf Book Awards 2017 Finalist seal

4.9 out of 5 on Amazon

“His love for Rebecca is robust, his humor is refreshing, and his determination is incomparable.”Emily Schaller, founder and CEO, Rock CF

See all the awards and reviews

This week’s lesson

13
Every day may not be a good day, but recognize that it is good to have that day.

Read all 38 lessons

Stay in the loop

Walk dates, new fundraising pages, and now and then a lesson. Sent when there’s something to say.

Follow along

News and photos between emails.