{"id":54536,"date":"2014-08-13T10:55:10","date_gmt":"2014-08-13T14:55:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=54536"},"modified":"2014-08-13T11:29:02","modified_gmt":"2014-08-13T15:29:02","slug":"a-word-about-the-als-icebucketchallenge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=54536","title":{"rendered":"A word about the ALS #IceBucketChallenge"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Ice<\/a><\/center><\/p>\n

You may or may not be aware of the Ice Bucket Challenge that is currently sweeping the social media sites sponsored by the the ALS Association<\/a>. I don’t recommend that you dump ice water on your head, but apparently, the thing is raising awareness of Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS), so I appreciate that. Very little is known about the disease, there is no real diagnosis for it – the only way doctors know how to find the disease is to eliminate everything else that could be causing the symptoms – let alone a treatment for ALS. <\/p>\n

I’ve known people who lasted only six months after the symptoms began to appear and then there’s Stephen Hawking who has been in a wheelchair and unable to dress or feed himself since 1974. So, that death clock that Daniel A. Bernath has posted on his website predicting my demise next year is purely subjective bullshit. In fact, I’m thinking that it’s a death threat.<\/p>\n

Only about 30,000 Americans have the disease at a given time, so it’s not a really well-known disease. But, it seems that Gulf War veterans get the disease at a higher rate than veterans who never went to the Gulf, so it is becoming a veterans’ issue. Traditionally, it’s hereditary, but, as in my own case, it’s beginning to appear in veterans who have no family history of ALS. So much so that, like Agent Orange exposure, ALS is now a “presumptive condition” which gets priority at the VA.<\/p>\n

But, to the bucket of ice thing – pouring a bucket of ice over your head has nothing to do with ALS, but the act made by some visible people has drawn some attention to the disease and I guess the ALS Association is realizing a surge in donations. So this is me challenging you to fore go the bucket of ice water and throw a few bucks at the ALSA…or to the Paralyzed Veterans of America<\/a> which has been instrumental in helping me to navigate the VA system. We, at TAH, have a quarter-million unique visitors every month – so if each of you sent a dollar, we could have a real impact.<\/p>\n

And thanks to folks like Maria Molina (the cutest weather girl in the world) for helping to get the word out;<\/p>\n