For the first six months following her amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) diagnosis, Valerie Geerer’s instinct was to keep the news to herself. “My husband and close family and friends knew, but I didn’t feel comfortable sharing it with co-workers or acquaintances,” she says. Then she met Dora Sementilli. Like Valerie, Dora was in her 50s . . .
With age often comes the maturity and grace to accept the world and oneself. That’s a good thing, because it takes every bit of that maturity to differentiate the aging process from the progression of a neuromuscular disease. Neuromuscular disease comes with certain physical limitations that can also look like aging — loss of strength, . . .
After years of denial, it was the stairs to his second-floor college apartment that forced Chris Anselmo to finally face his limb-girdle muscular dystrophy (LGMD) in 2009. “I remember moving in, trying to carry things like my desk chair to the top of the stairs, and just feeling completely weak and exhausted by the time I reached . . .
Every year, Deborah and Jeff Corbett went to their son Josh’s annual checkup with a set of questions. They checked on Josh’s chronic ear troubles and surgeries, inquired about his lagging motor skills, and at his 4-year visit, they asked about his peculiar running gait. When he was 5, they mentioned Josh had difficulty getting . . .
