Nanette Whitfield, stood beside her best friend and husband as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) painfully took his life, reported The Record Courier. Watching someone you love slowly lose everything has to be the most devastating situation anyone can face. Yet, while it indeed was, Nanette was adamant about looking at the positives and rejoicing in the beautiful man he was and relationship they had.
Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease, is a debilitating rare disease that attacks brain nerve cells and the spinal cord. Overtime, a patient with ALS will have muscle atrophy, losing all their strength, which will eventually paralyze them and affect their speech. There is still no known cure today. It’s an aggressive disease and often fatal. As soon as Nanette and her husband Steve heard the news, they knew what they were up against. To learn more about myotrophic lateral sclerosis, click here.
Nanette described Steve as the most wonderfully well-rounded man, who was a constant positive light in every life he encountered. As a contractor, he built up a great reputation for himself– and based on the testament of every client and sub-contractor he worked with, it was undeniable that he was an incredible man. Nanette knew this when she met him, and rather than let herself crumble in the face of her worst fears, she rose to the occasion and cared for him for his remaining days. It didn’t take long before he was unable to care for himself, and after short two years the disease took him completely. Over the course of those two years he went from weighing in at 210 pounds and standing tall at 6′ 2″, to weighing 120 pounds and losing an inch.
Nanette couldn’t help but continually talk about Steve’s strength through all of this. He may have lost his physical functionality, but he never lost his strength, his mind, and his heart. After the devastating toll take by the Whitfield family, Nanette only hopes others don’t ever have to experience what they did.
What makes ALS so difficult is that once someone is diagnosed, they often don’t have much time. Not enough patients lives long enough for studies to be conducted. For Steve, it all started with a “fatigued” thumb, which turned into a “fatigued” body, and like many others, he believed work was causing this.
With ALS, it’s a race against time. Although it’s hard to identify in the early stages, Nanette encourages everyone to get checked if something seems wrong. Maybe the individuals with the disease will have more time, resulting in more studies, resulting in an eventual treatment or even cure. We all hope for something like this for ALS cases to come.
