Fighting ALS, Fueled by Faith

Almost a year ago today my wife and I were at the Mayo Clinic in Phoenix, Arizona and heard the words: you’ve been diagnosed with ALS. It is a phrase that no human ever wants to hear, and as we were reeling and mentally grieving, one of the first questions that my wife asked was: will David be able to walk his daughter down the aisle for her wedding next June? The doctors looked at us, looked at each other and then were optimistic about it happening, but we were not as confident. A week later, while in Nevada at our primary neurologist, we got a confirming diagnosis, and at that point in time my daughter who was getting married in June was in the room as well. And the first thing that my wife and daughter asked was: would I be able to walk my daughter down the aisle at her wedding?

Leading up to this I knew it was important to both of them, in particular my daughter, but I didn’t realize just how important. From that moment on, I began to pray fervently every day, multiple times a day, for God to give me the strength and the capability to be able to do that and for the day to squarely be about her and her new husband and not at all about me and my condition. We also put our money and our effort behind that prayer and did multiple naturopathic therapies, physical therapy, exercise work, and several detoxification efforts to try to help my body to be prepared not only for that day but for the future. We are still on that journey today.

Two weeks ago in Dallas was the wedding week, and as any of you know who have destination weddings, it can be an exhausting experience. It’s wonderful! But there’s a lot to it, and there’s a lot of expectation, a lot of interactions, a lot of energy that you need to have in order to do it well. Because one of the biggest challenges with ALS is lack of energy, I was concerned about how it would go for me and if I would be able to be present. God, in His infinite wisdom, had been preparing myself and the family all along for this particular week. We had tremendous amount of help from friends and family, and He went before us and resolved all the details to allow for exactly what I was praying for, which was to be able to be present and to be able to walk my daughter down the aisle. Not only was that the case, but also I was able to do a meaningful speech and also do the daddy-daughter dance, which means so much to both the father and the bride. It was an amazing and joyous occasion!

The reason that I wanted to make this post is just to remind all of us that God is faithful. Even when it seems that life is very hard or that He may be distant, He is always with us and is faithful. There were many days that I was unsure if this was going to be possible, and thinking about contingencies and other strategies to be able to accomplish the things that I wanted to accomplish. Internal monologue can have us convincing ourselves of lies and send us down unproductive paths. But at the end of the day, God showed himself unmistakably to me, and provided the desire of my heart.

Four weddings in four years – I think we now deserve a rest! But Im not sure thats our story as you will see in my next post….