Toe report

I remember on Christmas when I hadn't been diagnosed yet, I took my mom and sister aside to tell them about my problem, and showed them my symptoms. This included the left-side leg and finger slowness, but also a comparative display of toe wiggle speed, right and left. The left toes were slow, but could go up and down as a group, to the full range you would expect. The could do the wave.

Today I tried that again and the left toes basically don't move, or to be more accurate, the seem to want to move, and they shift by a few millimeters, and then if I keep sending the signals: Up! Down! Up! Down! ... then after a while they start moving up and down as a group. But not as far as at Christmas.

This doesn't bother me. Call me a crackpot, or in denial, but I blame my ALS progression on two things: sleep deprivation, and illnesses such a colds and flues. So my denial construct is that I don't progress at all, save for those two factors.

And even if my progression were a linear thing not related to those two factors, it's taken nine months to paralyze my left toes, and even that's not complete. Plus my left hand is slower and less capable than it was. But, assuming that rate of progress, I could well be still walking 10 years from now, and it could be decades before this thing kills me.

Could be. Or it could be the gradual overall weakening of the sand castle leads to it washing away in an instant.

We Shall See.