This weekend I decided to go online and look some things up about ALS. I have had some questions and thought it would be easier to just look them up then to wait for my dads appointment. Such a bad idea.
Let me start off by saying that there are two types of ALS.
There is the sporadic which accounts for 90-95 percent of all ALS cases. This is where ALS just hits out of the blue for unknown reasons. There is no family history, the average age is about 55 when someone is diagnosed, and vets are TWICE as likely to get this type of ALS. They don't yet know why vets are more likly to get ALS than civilians but some reports I read said it might be something to do with the mandatory vaccines and or the chemicals used while in war.
And then there is FALS. This is when it runs in the family. When two or more people either have or had have ALS. This accounts for only 5-10 percent of all ALS cases. And most of the time the average age of diagnoses is about ten years younger at about 45. In this case the person with ALS has about a 50 percent chance of passing it down to their children.
I am not sure what happened but when I started reading this on my phone (this was the first time I have read about there being two different types) I didn't realize that I was reading about FALS and not sporadic.
So I walked away thinking that I had a 50 percent chance of also getting ALS. I literally walked into the garage (I was sitting outside with my husband while he was working on a project) and broke down.
How could I have a 50 percent chance of getting this horrible disease?
And what about Ryan? Can I now pass it down to him?
I was devastated.
I spent about the next thirty minutes crying uncontrollably.
And then I don't know what (I think God gave me a light bulb moment) but I started thinking about what I just read and went back to it.
I would say luckily but I hate using that word with this situation.
But my dad has all the signs that this is sporadic. He was 58 when diagnosed, he is a military vet who was in the Gulf War, and there is not other signs of ALS in our family.
Plus, FALS is really rare.
If it's sporadic it means there is no gene that is passed down so the chances of me or my brother getting it is zero to none (from what I understand and I have read this stuff a million times).
Which also means I not only will most likely not get ALS but that I won't pass it down to Ryan either.
I do feel relief. So many horrible thoughts were going through my head.
But only so much because my parents still have to go through this.
And me and my brothers still have to go through this.
(One of my brothers is adopted so even if it was FALS he wouldn't be involved. That's why I said brother.)
I am still heartbroken.
My dad still has to go through this.
I hate it.
And I am exhausted thinking about this.
The fear that this initially put it me was overwhelming and I only dealt with it for about thirty minutes before I went and reread what the article said. It literally took me all weekend for my anxiety to calm down.
I can't imagine what he is going through.
And I am staying off the internet. This would have never happened if I would have stayed off it in the first place.
