6/3/2023 0 Comments Gay bears telegram“I’ve had so many patients tell me they wish I told them they had cancer instead of ALS,” said Dr. In addition to the grim life expectancy, the disease has no cure, and the few FDA-approved treatments that currently exist can only extend life by a few months. Treatment is all we ask for.”īut hope doesn’t come easily. ![]() “But what you really want is just a chance to fight it, a chance to live. “When you get a terminal illness like this, obviously a cure would be the best-case scenario,” Stevens told the Southern California News Group in 2019, when his illness was only noticeable by a slight slur in his speech. Shortly after noticing the symptoms - and just months after his wedding to Amanda - he was diagnosed with ALS. He joined the Los Angeles Fire Department in 2015. ![]() Stevens played football for Cal and went on to join the St. He had trouble gripping things with his hands.Īt first, he thought it was an old football injury or something that happened on the job as an LA city firefighter. It was in 2019 when Eric Stevens first noticed something was wrong: His left hand felt weak and his arm muscles were twitching. It is an irreversible condition that eventually renders its victims unable to speak, eat and breathe on their own, with the average life expectancy being about two to five years after symptoms appear.Įxpand Finding hope in experimental medications “Just being alive and being present is enough.”Īmyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis is a disease in which motor nerve cells can no longer send messages to muscles. “Even though it seems like the end of the world, your perspective changes on what’s really important in life,” said Stevens, 33, who wasn’t feeling well enough to do an in-person interview but instead communicated via email. He can still read his daughter bedtime stories, sing her songs and cuddle her in bed. After all, he can still walk unassisted inside his family’s San Pedro home. To get up from a chair - or lift his 2-year-old daughter into the air.īut he hasn’t lost his hope. To brush his own teeth or get himself dressed. He has lost his ability to feed and bathe himself. In the four years since former NFL player Eric Stevens was diagnosed with ALS, a fatal, degenerative neuromuscular disease also known as Lou Gehrig’s Disease, he has lost a lot of things: ![]() By Melissa Heckscher, Contributing writer
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