"They said I probably wouldn't go to kindergarten," O'Neill said Friday night at a celebration of his 60th year.
A founding member of Celebrity Concert for Charity, O'Neill uses his time and energy to help raise money to find a cure for CF -- the life-threatening, genetic disease that primarily affects the lungs and digestive system.
His quest "to put the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation out of business" is marked with titanic struggles and even more titanic victories.
- In 1995, medical progress made it possible for him to get a double-lung transplant, but complications during the operation left him blind.
- In 2003, his wife donated a kidney to him.
- In 2006, he beat colon cancer and non-Hodgkin lymphoma.
"We've come a long, long way," he told family and friends for his celebration party at Neil's Heritage House on West Schantz Avenue. "But there's a lot of people we're lost along the way." People with CF inherit a defective gene that causes a buildup of thick mucus in the lungs, pancreas and other organs.
O'Neill said he was happy his family and friends chose the heritage house because he remembers "a lot of fun parties in the basement" when he worked for NCR. He retired from the company on medical disability. He asked those in the room to "bless those who suffer with CF" because it is so devastating to families.
There are some new drugs and researchers are close to eradicating CF, O'Neill said.
In order to do that, fundraising will have to continue, he said. The charity concert is one of the vehicles used to raise the money to help researchers continue the work to find a cure for CF. Kenny Loggins is scheduled to perform at the Fraze on Aug. 3 for the annual concert.
Recent advances in medicines prompted O'Neill to say he hopes he's wrong when he has said he doesn't think there will be a cure in his lifetime.
"They've come a long way," he said of CF researchers. "And hopefully, a child born today will have a normal life" through treatment and medicines.
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