LisaM
Member
- Joined
- Jan 9, 2008
- Messages
- 21
- Reason
- Loved one DX
- Diagnosis
- 11/2007
- Country
- US
- State
- California
- City
- Los Angeles
I am so glad to have found this site. I have been reading through the posts for 2 days now...you have all left me so inspired and enlighted at your strength and courage.
After 2 years of symptomology which started with imbalance my father was finally diagnoseded with ALS. For all this time Doc's speculated the entire gamut of potential neurological disorders all the while saying "At least it's not Lou Gehrigs" as all his tests came out clean. Yet, now we are here.
In two years he has graduated from the cane to the walker then wheelchair to basically being bedbound. His arms have significantly progressed in giving out on him as well.
He is 73 and like many stories here, was climbing mountains when this started and is the healthiest one in our family, by far. There is no rythm or reason...it just is...and now we all need to go through the range of emotions and difficulties.
It assaults the life of the patient and their caretakers...it has served to take over the lives of my mother and I but we still find a way to talk and laugh.
What makes it worse is that I found this site because I was searching potential causes for my own problems. I have been SO healthy (although I am only 32). Haven't been to a doctor in years, though I realize that's not necessarily a good thing. Yet right before Thanksgiving my left foot started tingling and now I feel a sort of weakness and numbness in both feet and an odd feeling I can't desribe in my hands. Reading some people's stories here has served to offiically freak me out for the first time in my life. I am so scared.
I know that it could be anything - fatigue from difficult transfers to make my dad to the bed, to the car, to the bathroom, showers, driving long distances to get to work, stress from trying to do it all, psychosomatic symptomology. It could be anything...but, it could be ALS also. Can't it?
I can't see a doctor either because I am scared of being locked into my job because they find something and then I become uninsurable if I change jobs, which is on the horizon as I have finally found a path in life that I am happy with and in the middle of grad school...my one saving grace in all of this.
I have not talked to anyone about this and it's starting to eat me up. I don't know what answers I am looking for from all of you. I am happy to have found a place to talk to people that "get it" though.
Thans for listening.
After 2 years of symptomology which started with imbalance my father was finally diagnoseded with ALS. For all this time Doc's speculated the entire gamut of potential neurological disorders all the while saying "At least it's not Lou Gehrigs" as all his tests came out clean. Yet, now we are here.
In two years he has graduated from the cane to the walker then wheelchair to basically being bedbound. His arms have significantly progressed in giving out on him as well.
He is 73 and like many stories here, was climbing mountains when this started and is the healthiest one in our family, by far. There is no rythm or reason...it just is...and now we all need to go through the range of emotions and difficulties.
It assaults the life of the patient and their caretakers...it has served to take over the lives of my mother and I but we still find a way to talk and laugh.
What makes it worse is that I found this site because I was searching potential causes for my own problems. I have been SO healthy (although I am only 32). Haven't been to a doctor in years, though I realize that's not necessarily a good thing. Yet right before Thanksgiving my left foot started tingling and now I feel a sort of weakness and numbness in both feet and an odd feeling I can't desribe in my hands. Reading some people's stories here has served to offiically freak me out for the first time in my life. I am so scared.
I know that it could be anything - fatigue from difficult transfers to make my dad to the bed, to the car, to the bathroom, showers, driving long distances to get to work, stress from trying to do it all, psychosomatic symptomology. It could be anything...but, it could be ALS also. Can't it?
I can't see a doctor either because I am scared of being locked into my job because they find something and then I become uninsurable if I change jobs, which is on the horizon as I have finally found a path in life that I am happy with and in the middle of grad school...my one saving grace in all of this.
I have not talked to anyone about this and it's starting to eat me up. I don't know what answers I am looking for from all of you. I am happy to have found a place to talk to people that "get it" though.
Thans for listening.