#ALSIceBucketChallenge
This evening I came across a video of a young man who was recently diagnosed with ALS at the age of 26. Yes, 26 years young. For those who haven’t lost a loved one to this debilitating disease, you are fortunate. I had the unfortunate event of experiencing the loss of my husband’s mother due to ALS in 2011. I had only been dating Jason for a few months before his mom was diagnosed with ALS, and it wasn’t too much longer before the symptoms started appearing.
We lost her before she could watch her last son (to marry) get married and she will never meet her youngest grandson. We watched her body slowly fade to nothing as the disease raged through her body. We watched an active, healthy and cheerful woman go from that person to nothing in a short period of time. I lost a mother-in-law and grandma to our son, but more importantly Jason (& his siblings) lost their mother. Other family members lost a sister, a daughter, an aunt, a cousin, a grandmother and a friend. Our son will only “know” his Grandma through pictures and stories, and the only time he can “see” her is if we visit her at the cemetery. I don’t wish that upon anyone. ALS is a terrible and debilitating disease. It’s affecting people at a younger age, and more people are being diagnosed with it than ever before.
Please consider donating to a worthy cause. And to all the haters out there, zip it. I don’t want to hear how tired you are of seeing people dump cold ice water on top of themselves and/or donating $. Just stop
For those of you who do not know what ALS is, here is a brief description from alsa.org website:
Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), often referred to as “Lou Gehrig’s Disease,” is a progressive neurodegenerative disease that affects nerve cells in the brain and the spinal cord. Motor neurons reach from the brain to the spinal cord and from the spinal cord to the muscles throughout the body. The progressive degeneration of the motor neurons in ALS eventually leads to their death. When the motor neurons die, the ability of the brain to initiate and control muscle movement is lost. With voluntary muscle action progressively affected, patients in the later stages of the disease may become totally paralyzed.
To read more about ALS, visit http://www.alsa.org/about-als/what-is-als.html
Watch this Video==> http://aplus.com/a/anthony-carbajal-ice-bucket-challenge-emotional-video
In Loving Memory of Judy K Benfield 1953-2011
