In April of 2006 I learned that my best friend of 15 years was dying from ALS, more commonly known as Lou Gehrig's Disease. ALS damages motor neurons in the brain and spinal cord. This shrinks and weakens the muscles, and ultimately the patient dies.
My friend had ALS a year after being diagnosed. We just didn't know it. When he visited me over the Christmas holidays that year I noticed that he had a slurred speech. He had just been given a medicine with sedative side effects for another health issue and everyone assumed his slurred speech was a process of acclimating to the new medication.
To see him physically he appeared healthy and normal. I went to see him in the summer of '07 and we lived life as we lived it when I still lived in the neighborhood. It was a difficult and awkward moment when we exchanged goodbyes. We hardly spoke or made eye contact that morning. Instead, we silently watched World soccer on TV as if nothing unusual between us was taken hold. As it is, we both weren't soccer fans.
We would occasionally phone each, and he eventually needed assistance from a talking machine. On one of the last phone conversations, he told me that he would need to have a feeding tube inserted into his stomach, through his abdomen. He had to learn how to feed himself with the feeding tube to prevent his choking on solid food and beverage.
I continued to visit him often and I was to visit him the week before New Years 2008. I received a cell phone call from his sister while I was out shopping days before my visit. His sister called to tell me that my friend went into a coma. He died several days after New Years.
He lived the last of his years dignified, graceful and uncomplaining. A year prior to being diagnosed with ALS his girlfriend of 15 years passed away. She was 44 and my good friend as well. He took her death hard. He hardly showed his loss.
During the holidays I think back and I have nothing but respect and admiration for my friend. I only hope to follow his example should I one day face the inevitable.
