I just wanted to share a short story about a young man that I met about 10 years ago that had been diagnosed with ALS at only 19 years old. He was a promising young artist when he started having symptoms that would later be diagnosed by Doctors as ALS. As the symptoms quickly developed and worsened over the matter of a few months he become very despondent and depressed. The disease was developing so quickly that he was afraid that soon he would be bedridden, unable to paint or even get out of bed. One day he decided that he could no longer face the future - he obtained a gun, his plan was take this unloaded gun rob a store, and have the police kill him as he fled. Fortunately the police were able to take him into custody without harming him and thats when I came into his life. I met him in jail before his first appearance in court and met with him several times over the next weeks. HIs health condition worsened in jail and the Judge decided that he would be released under supervision while his case proceeded, nobody thought that he would live long enough to actually go to trail. Over the course of the next couple of months I supervised this young man, made sure that he followed his court orders for release, got to know him, his story, and his family. This was a great kid from a great family, he helped to take care of his family, he was a gifted artist, and had never been in any kind of trouble. We often talked about how afraid he was of dying this way, the way that the disease would take his life. He was afraid of his mother having to watch him die slowly. Soon he was bed ridden, he could no longer get himself out of bed, clean himself, or feed himself. He would start coughing and each time he would wonder if this was the time that he wouldnt be able to continue breathing and he would die. Each coughing fit would fill both himself and his mother with terror. We all knew that the time was coming, maybe just a matter of hours or days, when another Doctor asked to see him. The Doctor sent an ambulance for him and sent him through a battery of new tests. After all the tests were complete the Doctor came into his room and said the most incredible words, You have been misdiagnosed. The disease that this young man suffered from was symptomatically the same as ALS, it ravaged the body just as quickly, and left untreated it was just was deadly. The difference was that this disease unlike ALS was treatable. This young man got a second chance at an amazing life......
Posted on: Sat, 23 Aug 2014 23:42:37 +0000
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