Duchenne muscular dystrophy is a midnight storm that gathers before a child can spell his own name, striking ≈ 1 in every 3,500 newborn boys and dismantling their muscles until most trade sneakers for wheelchairs by age 12 (https://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/musculardystrophy/data.html). Even with ventilators humming like restless lullabies, the horizon usually narrows to the early 30s (https://www.cureduchenne.org/what-is-duchenne/). A lone flash of scientific lightning—Elevidys gene therapy—flickers with hope, yet its $3.2 million price tag hangs like ransom over each family’s dream (https://www.statnews.com/2023/06/22/sarepta-gene-therapy-duchenne-muscular-dystrophy/). Meanwhile, the entire federal purse for Duchenne research hovers around a modest $20 million, barely enough to underwrite a handful of treatments (https://cdmrp.health.mil/funding/24/24dmddrp.pdf). Parents shoulder oxygen tubes, insurance denials, and midnight fundraising drives, turning bake-sale cupcakes and 5K weekends into lifelines that keep both today’s care and tomorrow’s cure alive. Their struggle is a poem of grit etched against biology’s brutality—every dollar a stanza, every donor a verse pushing back the night.