Marianne Has ALS

Today I fell inside the house. I always thought it would be the dogs who take me out, turns out it was my 11 year old I need to worry about. He had left his scooter by the front door in an upright position, however, through mysterious forces (like gravity) it fell down. My fall was realtivly gentle, the fall isn’t the hard part.

Today I found out that if I am on the floor, I cannot get back up. I cannot roll to my stomach and move to my hands and knees because my muscles no longer work as they should. We (both Jacob and myself) are still figuring out how to handle this kind of thing (pointers are welcome). Our lessons mostly consist of realizing what doesn’t work. Trying to get to my knees via a chair does not work, trying to life me from under my arms does not work – however I do feel I have signifcantly reduced my risk of being kidnapped.

Today I learned my core is the strongest part of my body. I was able to sit and scoot to the stairs where Jacob and I managed to get me upright.

ALS is this progressive march into shame, weakness, and guilt. And today was a humble reminder that though it feels slow in the day to day, ALS is eating away at my body one neuron…one muscle at a time.