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Funny About ALS

ALS is a devastating illness to be sure.  It robs us of the use of our own appendages; arms, legs and our heads (but not our brains).  It robs us of our ability to speak and even to breathe eventually.  What possible humor can come from such horror?  The inevitability of our demise hangs over our head.  What's funny about that?  Plenty, depending upon one's point-of-view.

Early on, I had been warned away from ladders by my ALS buddies at the support group and agreed to leave the climbing to Rod.  However, auto-pilot kicked in and in my mind, I was able-bodied once more.  I wanted to add paprika to my eggs and automatically grabbed my wooden 3-step Ikea stool.  Bing, bing, bing up I go and freeze.  "Honey?  Will you come help me down?", I warble.  He was not amused.

At Christmastime an intestinal flu bug made the rounds and I caught it.  For days I was reduced to a state I can only describe as infantile.  Stuff was rapidly coming out of both ends.  My weak-stomached husband performed masterfully and a few days later I was better.  However he was hit hard with the same bug yelling at me to stay away lest I get it. The flu weakened my already tortured muscles and all packages were stronger than I.  Many futile attempts were made to obtain mild, easily-digestible food to no avail. I did discover an opened box of Aplets and Cotlets beneath the Christmas tree and ate them all.  Hours later I was hungry again.  The thought of prepared food made me nauseous and I called my sister several miles away. She offered up pizza, McDonalds cheeseburgers, anything I wanted.  My choice? Cheese sandwich, cold, pitiful, and bland left at my quarantined front door.  Maybe that's only funny to me.  I am partial to gourmet fare.

Wanna giggle?  Throw me a stick of string cheese or a Ghirardelli chocolate square.  I love the stuff!...And don't open it.  I've spent an hour...biting, attempting to tear it open by shear force of will.  Discovering an ulu, attempting to cut into the plastic using my "good" left hand, mushing up the cheese, barely surviving with all fingers in tact and no blood shed.  Imagine my husband's face when he discovers my abandoned project.  Incredulous and horrified!  THAT was the look on his face.  Now that was funny.

Easter I made like an Easter egg in my white, pink, and fushia-swirl cardigan lying atop a bed of green.  During a foray into my yard to admire the progress being made on my newly-built wheelchair ramp, I fell over, (BLIP) landing on my left side, hip firmly embedded in the green pile of a mossy carpet, left arm extended.  No way to get up and nobody to hear a plea.  Nothin' to do except wait to be discovered.

Some days I type using a modified method as some fingers work on my left hand and only my middle finger works (kinda) on my right.  (Well, it's not like I can flip anyone the bird.)  Recently, one of my fingers on my right hand has developed a demented mind of it's own and upon painstakingly pecking-out two paragraphs, Shazam! paragraphs disappear.  WHAT?!  So, I do it again even more painstaking and mindful...Shazam!  Again.  Are you kiddin' me?  And a third time...slower still.

Let's just say that I am currently embracing speech recognition technology.  Maybe ALS does affect our brains...I'm incredibly stubborn.



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