Don't Give Me A Miracle

I don't believe in miracles. I don't believe some unseen hand in the sky will come down to cure me with a touch. There is a simple reason for this. Notwithstanding that unrealistic miracle assessment, should something such as that happen, should I suddenly be cured of ALS, that simply opens the door for something else to end my life, perhaps a heart attack, or a car accident, or cancer. To pray for a miracle cure to ALS is foolish. Perhaps one day there will be a treatment or even a cure. As for today, I will live the best life I can in my circumstances.

The previous paragraph does not mean I will passively accept all that ALS is doing and has done to me. I will continue to rage at the dying of the light, something I would do no matter how my life was coming to a close. I will continue to decry the depredations of this disease. I will continue to beg for financial support for myself, for the Alberta ALS Society, for ALS research in general. Next year, if I am still about, I will once again be at Betty's Run, once again asking for team support.

All of this rant arises from a headline in a UK paper posted on Facebook. The headline referenced praying for a miracle. While a cure for ALS will be a wonderful thing, the true miracle is that focus we put on the situation today, the ongoing funding for research, the money for people like me to keep going in the face of all odds to the contrary.

If I want a miracle, it would come in the form of a lottery win, something in the extreme less likely than getting ALS. Perhaps, more modestly, it would be nice to have enough money to go on another road trip, or maybe even a cruise. Yet here I am, living a miracle, enjoying a full life while dealing with the damage along the way. In other words, other than this one little health issue, I'm doing well, leading a fairly normal life, albeit foreshortened.

My greatest concern when it comes to ALS are those lives taken too early; people like Sarah Coglianese who lives with ALS but will leave a young daughter behind.. Yet that same concern must focus on the 21 year old who dies from cystic fibrosis, the 6 year old who dies from brain cancer, or, even more sadly, the 12 year old killed by a drunk driver. There are a great many tragic causes out there. Mine is ALS. It sucks, but then again so does cystic fibrosis, cancer and drunk drivers.

It is not that I am hardened to tragedy. It is simply that I know a "miracle cure" for anything simply replaces one form of suffering with another. If I ask for a miracle, it would be for the young, for those beginning their life's journey. I am in the range of "normal" death, just a bit early. So was the person covered by that headline. I don't need to be removed from the cold hand of death. I need help while enjoying what life I have left, short or otherwise.