ALS

It begins quietly. A muscle that no longer responds the way it used to. A hand that can no longer hold a pen quite right. A foot that stumbles where it used to walk steadily. At first you think: stress, age, overwork. But it doesn't stop. It spreads. The muscles that have carried you through your entire life — that allowed you to grip, to walk, to speak, to breathe — are withdrawing. Slowly, inexorably, as if your body were shutting itself down.

ALS — amyotrophic lateral sclerosis — is one of the most severe diagnoses a person can receive. The motor neurons, the nerve cells that control your muscles, are dying. The body loses its capacity for action, step by step, while the mind remains awake. You are there, completely there — locked inside a body that does less and less of what you tell it.