What is ALS. Do you remember? Did you ever know? Does anybody know? Why is there no cure? If ALS is incurable, then why is anybody trying to find one? The word 'incurable' can be compared to 'unattainable' and in the comparison lies the core strength of negativity, futility, even hopelessness. Impacting this barrage of defeatist structure upon the already maligned and miserable sufferer guarantees a greater struggle against what have now been defined as insurmountable odds.
ALS. Simply put, an error message put forth by the brain allows an overproduction of glutimate to short circuit and eventually drown upper motor neuron cells responsible for carrying information to voluntary muscle cells throughout the body, at first bombarding then with too much information and eventually killing them when the motor neuron dies and all information ceases.
ALS within me seems to ebb and flow. There was a time when my freight train to disaster was chugging hard and moving fast. My decline was frightful and depressing. Today I see a struggle for the locomotive as it crawls upward, slowly, possibly losing traction and slipping backwards on occasion, losing grip...... On the track, on me......
Metaphor always trumps simile. ALS is a train ride. Sometimes too fast, in some instances too slow, always too real. My ebb and flow is not really to and fro, more up and down, a rollercoaster of symptoms, emotions, pains and gains, a seemingly endless test of endurance and resolve.
ALS takes away my speech, my movement, my breath. Doctors and diagnoses take away hope. But not from me...... I keep dragging my feet as that train struggles up the grade, my heels dug deep. The caboose is my friend as I pull this sonofabitch off the tracks. Let's see it take me now!
ALS. Simply put, an error message put forth by the brain allows an overproduction of glutimate to short circuit and eventually drown upper motor neuron cells responsible for carrying information to voluntary muscle cells throughout the body, at first bombarding then with too much information and eventually killing them when the motor neuron dies and all information ceases.
ALS within me seems to ebb and flow. There was a time when my freight train to disaster was chugging hard and moving fast. My decline was frightful and depressing. Today I see a struggle for the locomotive as it crawls upward, slowly, possibly losing traction and slipping backwards on occasion, losing grip...... On the track, on me......
Metaphor always trumps simile. ALS is a train ride. Sometimes too fast, in some instances too slow, always too real. My ebb and flow is not really to and fro, more up and down, a rollercoaster of symptoms, emotions, pains and gains, a seemingly endless test of endurance and resolve.
ALS takes away my speech, my movement, my breath. Doctors and diagnoses take away hope. But not from me...... I keep dragging my feet as that train struggles up the grade, my heels dug deep. The caboose is my friend as I pull this sonofabitch off the tracks. Let's see it take me now!
Where is Fern? How many ALSers read this stuff?
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