My "Always Laughing Society"

I am 58 years old and was diagnosed with ALS in January, 2006, although I started experiencing symptoms last summer. I am a teacher and told my school and students immediately. They had all noticed the limp and I had told them all along about my search for its cause. Their support, concern, and prayers have overwhelmed me. Although I can certainly retire, I will continue to teach for as long as I can still talk and communicate with my students. I love it, and maybe there is one more student that I have yet to inspire. School has already started for me this year. The students and teachers laugh with me as I negotiate the halls in my candy red scooter.

I have decided that all life is terminal and I have been given the gift of knowing that I will not live as long as I had hoped. I have the opportunity to decide how to spend my remaining years - as all of us do - for as long as I will be given the opportunity. I have chosen to follow the advice of Carl, whom I met in the waiting room of the Vanderbilt ALS clinic - "have faith, do your exercises, and laugh a lot." He has had ALS for 11 years and still ministers and sings to patients in nursing homes. I feel that it is not really the exercising that is keeping him going. We all need a reason to keep on living. We need a purpose and need to know that we are making a difference in this journey called "life." When I do succomb, it is my hope that I have made a positive contribution while I have walked this earth. I refuse to concentrate on the things that I can no longer do - and there are new ones each day - but to rejoice in the things that I can still enjoy doing. I have the wonderful support of my family, friends, co-workers, and students. I am constantly searching for alternative treatments - anything that gives me hope. The medical establishment, I feel, has a lot to learn about the power of the mind in treatment and healing.

My husband started a notebook when I was diagnosed. He wrote on the cover ALS - "Always Laughing Society." I loved it. That's who he and I are. He has struggled with his own chronic illness for over 40 years - Juvenile Diabetes. We have learned to laugh at ourselves as we struggle to help each other. Life is for the living and is to be enjoyed for as long as possible.
I have been blessed. I refuse to spend the rest of my life dying. I smile as people constantly remark, "You look good!" They never said that to me before, but I know what they mean. They are looking for someone who looks like she has a "terminal Illness." But, as I said earlier, all of us are suffering from a terminal illness. It's called "life," and life is to be enjoyed. Please join me in the "Always Laughing Society."