[Spridgets] OT - Join us in the Walk to Defeat ALS (Part 1)

[Kristi & Lambert]

Hello Fellow MG'ers

	On April 25, we will be participating in The ALS Association's Bucks
County Walk to Defeat ALS. We have recently accepted the challenge to
raise funds to help the Association accelerate the discovery of the
cause and cure of Lou Gehrig's Disease, and to provide programs and
services that are so desperately needed by ALS patients and their
families.

	Imagine: as you are busy with your career, your family, and your
community responsibilities, you become unable to speak well. You fall
inexplicably. You have trouble picking up papers or using a pen. You
tire very easily. You seek medical counsel, but are given no
satisfactory answers. If you can imagine this, then you start to
understand the beginnings of ALS, or Lou Gehrig's Disease.

	Unfortunately, the beginning is the best part of the struggle with
ALS it gets much worse. Relatively quickly - usually within two years
- the patient becomes unable to speak, to move, to swallow. Finally,
the patient becomes unable to breathe. Most patients die within five
years. Yet, through it all, for the vast majority of patients, their
minds remain unaffected. Essentially the ALS patient's mind is trapped
inside a helpless body.