Good bye cruel world

“9 hours and counting till I am on my way to Yosemite and Sierrapalooza!

My tent tarp came today. I set it up in the rain. Woo Hoo!”

“Big Deal, I'm going to haul some trash to the dump. Bet you wish you could get in on some of that action.”

“Have a great trip, tango. And please be careful. You're loved here in Florida.”

“You are going to have such a good time girl.


8)”

“Yeah, hyway, btw we'll miss you!

Nowslimmer, glad you're off the TT IR! Thank you for the sentiment. You are revered here too! Ready for Ocala III?”

“CMB I am excited but I'm only about 60%, so I hope I won't be in pain the whole time.

Does aspirin and Naproxin go together?”

“I hope I didn't sound to bitter...

Black Hills, Yosemite... you guys are so lucky.

I think I'll go climb a 60' sand dune and pretend I am above the cloud line.”

“hyway, I thought you were being funny. There is something to be said about watching the waves crash the beach!”

“"Big Deal, I'm going to haul some trash to the dump. Bet you wish you could get in on some of that action."
hyway
11:52:24 PM
06/19/03

I take it you don't get to go, and I'm not laughing at your bad luck, but that post had my sides splitting!”

“It was meant to be funny.

I actually just came back from a hike, which has me feeling pretty perky. Still it 5-6 hours to anything bigger than a dirt pile.”

“Looking forward to seeing ya in about 2 weeks, you hockey nut!”

“Watch out for cannibals.”

“I like Fine Young Cannibals”

“There is a movie by the same name of the title of this thread.

I feel it is my duty to tell you never to watch this film.

Here is the link to its IMDb page. Ignore any commentary saying it's good. It's not, it's awful.”

“ALS researcher signs on for experimental drug
Gene therapy extends lives of mice in study

Paul Elias
The Associated Press
February 5, 2005


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
SAN FRANCISCO - The shocking self-diagnosis dawned slowly but inevitably on Dr. Richard Olney, a top neurologist who dedicated his career to helping those afflicted with the fatal "Lou Gehrig's disease."
Three surgeries to relieve a compressed disk in his back didn't solve the weakness that started in his right knee and spread to both legs. When his arms started to fail, he knew he was in the grips of a neurological disorder. Then his worst fears were realized: He had amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS.

"I expected to live into my 80s like my parents did," said Olney, struggling to get his words out through an amplifier resting on his lap in his motorized wheelchair at the University of California, San Francisco. "But I've done more in my 56 years than most people have done in their whole life. I can't complain too much."

Olney resigned last year as head of the university's renowned ALS center, which he'd founded in 1993, turning it over to his protege Dr. Cathy Lomen-Hoerth. But he's not giving up his struggle against the disease, which mystifies experts today as much as it did when New York Yankee slugger Lou Gehrig died of it in 1941.

He's signed on as the first human guinea pig in a trial of two drugs that slowed the disease's progress in mice, and he's also using the time he has left to raise awareness and money to combat ALS.

Olney was famous for spending countless hours counseling patients, and that spirit lives on at the ALS center, where Lomen-Hoerth said she tries to summon the same soothing words and advice as she attends to her own patients - who now include Olney.

UCSF has set up a fund in Olney's name and he intends to continue his campaign - doing interviews and agreeing to stay in the public eye - until his strength gives out. Olney's health has rapidly declined since he was diagnosed in June.

"He spent his life trying to make a difference in this disease," his wife of 30 years, Paula, said as Olney slowly worked his legs in UCSF's specialized gym. "If this is the way it has to be done ."

Some 30,000 Americans currently have ALS, a small number when compared to other brain diseases. But that's because ALS typically kills quickly, often within a year or two after diagnosis.

About 10,000 new cases are diagnosed every year. And while about 10 percent of the cases have genetic roots, it's not known how the other 90 percent occur.

With ALS, only the brain cells that control muscles die. The intellect remains intact even as the disease immobilizes the victim's body.

There's no real treatment for ALS. The one drug approved by federal regulators extends life by a few months for some.

Rothstein is among a handful of researchers developing possible treatments using gene therapy. Later this year, he and his colleagues hope to test in humans a common virus they've engineered to carry a gene that produces a growth factor directly to the brain and spinal cord. This technique significantly extended the lives of ALS-afflicted mice.”

“I once did a story on a man who had ALS. He had been a high school football coach. He and the nurses who attended him worked out a communications code where he blinked his eyes to communicate. It was wierd doing an interview with a guy blinking his eyes and the nurses interpreting, but we managed it.

They had raised money to take him back to South Bend for a Notre Dame football game. He had a big fighting Irish flag draped above his bed. When we talked about that game, his entire face lit up. When I got something wrong, his face showed impatience.

Bob Koreck is gone many years now, but I think I learned as much about living from that man tied to a respirator as from anybody in all my years. It was a moving story, and I swear it took everything I had to give emotionally. But I'll always be grateful I was able to do it.

When he passed I had to write his obituary. It was one of those things that was inevitable. Heck, we all die. In Bob's case, I was happy to realize that he lived what life he had fully. That intellect was busy right up until the end.

ALS is cruel that way. Bob's theory was that he had to play the hand he was dealt. We don't get to choose how we go for the most part. He cited the story of a woman with ALS who wanted to have them pull the plug on her respirator. He thought that was taking the coward's way out. He was an amazing man.

That all took place more than 15 years ago, and it's all still fresh in my mind. I can still see the smile for Notre Dame and the scowl when the reporter got things twisted up.”