The Pill Bottle

I hate writing about what is happening to my body, especially when so many other things in my life are going so well. Thanks to support from all of you, I have been able to start not one, but two batches of wine. I've been able to meet my extra mortgage payment this month as well. I've managed to get out this last weekend and David is planning other outings for me. He is even looking at insuring my truck rather than have me sell it, so he can take me on a few more road trips!

Yet, all the while surrounded by these good things, I am constantly faced with the challenge of ALS, the continuing loss of ability. Lately I have been noticing the increasing weakness in my fingers. It's not a lot, just enough to let me know what will happen in a few months or so. I'm having just the slightest bit of trouble opening my pill jars. Not enough trouble that I need help, not even enough that I would consider changing to easy-open blister packaging. No, it's just enough to make me know it's happening.

That's how it works with ALS. You can see the train coming. You can see it a long way off, watching it get closer and closer. Then, as it nears you, you realize fully how completely helpless you are, trapped in its path, unable to move out of the way. You know it's going to hit you. You know you are going to lose every bit of muscle and strength you have. And as you wait, you can feel its vibrations, feel the reduced strength, see the atrophy, sense the total loss to come.

This is the terror of ALS; the waiting and knowing. The hopelessness lies in knowing that there is nothing you can do, no treatment, no cure, nothing but wait for the end of it all. Along the way you can experience moments of joy, times of happiness, but in the end, as you try to open a pill bottle, or pick up a towel, or turn over in bed, you realize what is happening to you, how it will all end.

I am not afraid of ALS. I am ready to face whatever it will do to me, but only for so long. At some point it will be enough. My hope is that day is not too soon. After all, I just started a couple of batches of wine; I need to be around for at least a few months. But that damned pill bottle has me worried.