Sunday was a pretty relaxing day. However, on Sunday evening I was summoned to complete the not-so-relaxing ALS-awareness/fundraising-effort-gone-viral #IceBucketChallenge. You probably know the drill already, but I'll repeat it just in case. If nominated, you need to dump a bucket of ice water on yourself within 24 hours of receiving the Facebook tag or you have to donate $100 to an ALS charity! Since I figured $100 was a bit steep on my entry level salary, I gave into getting a bucket of ice water dumped on myself. Here's my go at it...
The funny thing about this was that I still didn't actually know exactly what ALS was after I got ice water dumped all over me. During some downtime at work today, I took the liberty to do a little research and put together some as a quick cheat sheet for all of y'all. Hopefully this helps inform a bit better than the slew of videos on Facebook. I don't know about you guys, but I didn't really learn that much from them other than who screams the loudest ;P
The Details on ALS ::
- ALS, short for Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis.
- It is often called Lou Gehrig's disease.
- For non-sports buffs, Lou Gehrig played baseball for the New York Yankees for seventeen seasons in the 1920's and 1930's. He was a renowned hitter with a 0.340 batting average. (The major league average this season is 0.252).
- ALS is a progressive disease that affects nerve cells in the brain and spine -- as it progresses muscles become weaker, the brain loses its ability to control muscle movement, and this leads to paralysis.
- It can progress differently in afflicted individuals.
- The cause of ALS is not fully understood.
- There are no cures or treatments to stop or reverse the disease yet.
- However, many drugs are in clinical trials and there are therapies to manage ALS symptoms, but lots of research is still needed.
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