Thank you for helping me reach my Walk to Defeat ALS(R) fundraising goal! This is an exciting opportunity for us to work together to support those affected by Lou Gehrig's Disease and to spread awareness of the urgency to find treatments and a cure.

Please consider walking with me or sponsoring me. With your help, we will be able to make a difference in the lives of people affected by this disease. I encourage you get your friends, family, neighbors and coworkers involved!

Why We Need Your Help

A couple years ago my Mom started slurring her words, thats where it all began. I remember at the time we weren’t that concerned, the disease starts off slow. Doctors would tell us things like it was just stress, perhaps a combination of medication. But it only got worse, new symptoms started to emerge. So I started going to all her appointments with her trying to piece together a puzzle that even doctors we’re having trouble with.

It was right around a years worth of overcoming obstacles before we found ourselves sitting in Dr. Felice’s office listening - finally - to her diagnosis: ALS. I was shocked, devastated, unknowingly naive and a bit relieved we had an answer, even if I hated what the answer was. But there was really no time for any of those emotions, not yet anyway. My Mom, she really needed me, and I knew it.

That day I went straight home and started researching everything I could find on ALS. Very quickly I stumbled across The ALS Association. All I can even remember thinking back on the first day I found their webpage was "The Walk to Defeat ALS" because for the first time in our journey I was given hope. Tangible hope, something I could participate in to help my Mom. I registered our team that day, April 14th. Kym’s Soldiers.

At the time my Mom didn’t live with me yet, so I drove to her house knowing she was struggling with her new diagnosis, I sat her down and I showed her. There were people, teams of people, all over the country, working, fighting to find her a cure. To find everyone living with ALS a cure. I showed her she had her very own team of people standing in her corner, fighting for her. She just hugged me and through her tears thanked me over and over again. I realized the hope and support it gave her was even more important then what it gave me. It would be what carried her through her darkest moments. For the next 9 months whenever she lost her way, I’d pull up our team page and show her all the people fighting, all the money raised and every single time, she lit up, renewed with strength. In the beginning that’s the only reason why I thought I was involved in the Connecticut Chapter; to raise money and help end this disease. Very quickly I realized that was only a part of it.

The CT Chapter literally became apart of our family. Every new challenge we faced they were right there with us figuring it out. My Mom early on was unable to climb stairs any longer, so they provided us with a stairlift, free of charge and gave us a grant to cover the cost of installation. One afternoon Mike, the director of The CT Chapter, came over to give us some wheelchair ramps. He showed up in a suit, arriving after a meeting, changed into some gym clothes and got to work. Him and my husband spent the next few hours using trial and error to figure out the best design and built the safest and easiest wheelchair ramp for my Mom to use. They were in the trenches with us, every step of the way, doing whatever they could possibly do to keep my Mom as comfortable and as independent as possible. Something I could have never done so well without their help. To sum it up; Before I even had any contact with someone from The ALS Association they reached their hand out and held ours and never let go.

That is why even though my Mother passed away this last December, I’m still involved in The CT Chapter; through supporting them I feel as though, indirectly, I am in the trenches doing whatever I can to help our entire local community that is living with ALS. Also, I promised my Mom that no matter what I would never stop fighting to find a cure for ALS, and the CT Chapter is my biggest resource to keep that promise to her.