Wednesday, January 21, 2004

Inspirational
I was walking down the street to pick up my son from preschool (my Mars Rover presentation this morning went off very well!), and a neighbor pulled out of her driveway and waved at me. She is a nice person and I like her. She paused, rolled down her window, and said "You are inspirational!" That made me feel nice, but I think she is laboring under a misapprehension. I can still walk, so I am going to pick up my son. I don't know what else I would do. That's not inspirational. Sure, some people might conceivably sink into passive depression or substance abuse or something. But I think most people would do exactly what I am doing now. Just living.

It is hard to believe that the ALS diagnosis is real, or, even if it is, it is hard to believe that I will die, or even be disabled in a serious way, by it. Famous last words perhaps. But what I am hoping is that the people at the ALS center look me over on the 28th and say: "No, you don't have ALS, you just have a semi-paralytic condition caused by stuffy sinuses and an excess Kavorka score. You not only will not die from it, you will have to fend off an annoying flurry of winning lottery tickets. Get out of here!"

The neurologist I have been seeing wants to do the EMG test on me Friday the 23rd. This is the one where they stick some small needles in you to oberve the electrical behavior in your muscles. Apparently ALS comes with microscopic twitching. Even if the results are consistent with ALS, my response will be that I will defy the condition.

My son is calling for me. We are going to look at a winged insect under the microscope I got him for his birthday. He is only 4 but he handles it quite well. I am trying to grow some micro-organisms in a jar of water and mud I prepared a couple of days ago. It was tap water though, so that may have killed off some of the animals. I am hoping for amoeba and, my favorite, protozoa (is that the right word? Shoot! I mean the one that looks like a shoe. Um... darn! I will think of it later.).
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