I find myself working through a little dilemma here. It’s somewhat of a head-scratcher, if you will.
It’s O’dark 30, (actually, it’s about 3:15 AM, but O’dark 30 sounds cooler) and I’ve just been awakened for the umpteenth time from an imperfect sleep. It seems as though my head itches just above my right ear.
Fortunately, I’ve come up with three options on how to best resolve the situation.
Option A: I reach my right arm up and have my right hand scratch just above my ear, and voilà, it’s taken care of it. Simple enough, right?
Option B: I wake up my lovely wife from her imperfect sleep and ask her to scratch said spot, or
Option C: I lay there for 15 minutes or so, debating Snell versus Strider for the NL Cy Young, hoping to distract myself back to sleep. Is 20 wins that meaningful anymore? Especially with a ridiculously high ERA and when you’re supported by an offense that’s slugging .501 as a team. But wow, the sheer K/9 dominance. Strikeouts are sexy. Or does the incredible ERA, BAA, and 20+ Quality Starts from a guy whose team didn’t even make the postseason win out? Consider all those zero frames he put up, even with that high WHIP rate. Amazing.
So now that you understand my dilemma. What is the answer? (Not the Cy Young answer, the itch one).
Well, for me, the answer is Option C. Let me explain.
Why not option B? Are you serious? Did I mention it was O’dark – I mean 3:15 AM? My wife works tirelessly 30 to 40 hours each and every day to take care of me (OK, that may be a bit of an exaggeration, but it sure seems like she does that much on my behalf). Yeah, absolutely no way I’m going to wake her up in the middle of the night for such a minor inconvenience. If I was on fire? Probably… but not this.
Why not option A? Well, sadly, it’s not really an option. See, I can no longer lift my hands above my chin. Even with one arm trying to hoist the other, I can only reach about my earlobe. That means that itch just above my ear is, unfortunately, just out of reach.
Therefore, option C it is. I’m simply left to hope that the distraction will help me forget about that pesky itch long enough so that I fall back asleep. Otherwise, I might be forced to delve into the question of Acuña versus Betts race for NL MVP as well.
Anyway, in all seriousness, this is a quirky example of one simple lost body function. But it is just that – only one example, out of the hundreds of simple tasks that a person with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis will lose as the brutal, progressive disease ravages their bodies and upends their lives.
It will start by taking away the big things; your ability to drive, or swim, or step up into the camping trailer – leaving a trail of destruction in its path. Then it goes after the little things you never really gave a second thought about before. It’s crazy if you think about it. Comb your hair? Nope. Maybe brush your teeth? Nada. What about tying your shoes? No such luck. The list goes on and on, seemingly growing by the day.
While I may have provided a real experience from my own life, this is about so much more than me. Tens of thousands of people are afflicted with ALS. Perceived to be rare, it’s actually more common than you might think. Every 90 minutes, someone is diagnosed with ALS. And every 90 minutes, somebody dies of ALS. In between, we simply try to live our daily lives, navigating new challenges nearly every day.
So every day it becomes incumbent on us to adjust, to adapt, to overcome in any way possible in a fight against a ruthless foe. Because even if we are forced to accept an eventual loss of the physical battle, our only hope is to believe we can somehow find peace in the mental and emotional war.
Welcome to my world. Living with ALS.
