ALS (Lou Gehrig’s Disease)
Sorry… I misspelled it in the last entry.
Someone asked me about the disease so I looked it up and pasted the part below…..under WHAT IS ALS? Now I will tell you what I personally know. Which is nothing…. so I’ll tell you about my friend Jeremy.
Jeremy was a football player in high school. When he came to work he was just over 20 years old and in excellent physical condition. At the fire station where I work we have exercise equipment.and Jeremy was one of those who made use of the equipment and enjoyed working out in his downtime. I’m not sure exactly when it was but a few months before he was diagnosed he was able to do anything he wanted on the exercise equipment. He was often referred to as a ‘hoss’ because he could bench press more than most men at the station and loved doing it. The first time I personally noticed anything unusual about Jeremy he was standing at the kitchen counter trying to slice a tomato and he couldn’t t hold the tomato good enough with one hand to slice it with the other. About a week later I head that he was seeing specialist because of his weakness in one hand. A month or so after that he told us the news of his diagnosis. I’m not sure how much time passes but he was soon on sick leave and off from work. Within a few months he dropped by the station and it was evident that the disease was progressing quickly because he seemed to have trouble with his feet dragging and his legs not working properly. For several months some of his closer friends from the department helped his family when he became bedridden and needed to be moved. Eventually he was moved into a nursing home so he would have 24 hour care. He eventually could hardly speak and it became difficult for him to breath. I am not positive on the time line but I believe the time from diagnosis to his passing was less than 2 years.
About a year before he was diagnosed Jeremy made a big change in his life. He started going to church. He stopped cursing… remember it was a fire station full of men and yes we act like we ‘had no raisin’" when we were alone and having a good time. Jeremy could lay it on thick with the best of them. But just like that, he changed. When he got sick he never wavered in his conviction to his religious conversion. Right after he got sick the department began a fundraising drive and started a scholarship fund at the local community college. We had a banner made that included the photo i posted in the previous entry. We used the banner in our fundraising efforts. Beside the photo was one of Jeremy’s favorite scriptures. When fellow firefighters visited him he never once felt sorry for himself or blamed his lot in life on anyone else.The mood around the firehouse changed after Jeremy had to retire. We kept the banner posted in a prominent place to remind us all.
Luke 22:42: Saying, Father, if thou be willing, remove this cup from me: nevertheless not my will, but thine, be done.
– King James Bible "Authorized Version", Cambridge Edition
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.
A-myo-trophic comes from the Greek language. "A" means no or negative. "Myo" refers to muscle, and "Trophic" means nourishment–"No muscle nourishment." When a muscle has no nourishment, it "atrophies" or wastes away. "Lateral" identifies the areas in a person’s spinal cord where portions of the nerve cells that signal and control the muscles are located. As this area degenerates it leads to scarring or hardening ("sclerosis") in the region.
As motor neurons degenerate, they can no longer send impulses to the muscle fibers that normally result in muscle movement. Early symptoms of ALS often include increasing muscle weakness, especially involving the arms and legs, speech, swallowing or breathing. When muscles no longer receive the messages from the motor neurons that they require to function, the muscles begin to atrophy (become smaller). Limbs begin to look "thinner" as muscle tissue atrophies.