The muscle wasting was getting worse in his hands and of course he made his living with his hands.

So he made an appointment with his doctor who sent him for all kinds of tests and there wasn't one of those people who could give him an answer. This went on for two years. He didn't tell me he had been looking up all his problems on the computer.

At that time I didn't know a thing and he never told me what he thought it was.  As it turned out he was right.

He came home one day and told me what the doctor had said. I really had trouble getting my head around it I kept thinking that it had to be a mistake I did a lot of crying at that point because I didn't know how we would handle it. But handle it we did ,we finely got the second opinion and I had to except it like it or not. We were in for the long haul as we had been for our whole life so the only difference was we were living with a 2 to 5year time gap. I was already on a disability pension so I would have to adapt a few things.

And accept a few things as well. It s hard to think of this person who had always been able to do anything we needed done.

He never backed away from things because they were difficult. So we applied the same reasoning with this I have tried to educate myself about the disease and finding out were I could go for help well there is lots of help if you look although we have one of the best A.L.S. societies in Canada as far as I am concerned. I got hold of them and if it weren't for Gloria Miller and Lorraine Lovoie and the support they give I would have been lost. There was many hours of crying on Lorraine's shoulder but I realized that this isn't about me it's about Merv and so I quite feeling sorry for my self and got going We live one day at a time and try to enjoy each other as much as possible. Some days are worse than others but there is lots to laugh about and the one thing you should do is keep a sense of humour. It makes the days go by much easer. We are getting things in place so there will be everything there as we need them. And we just keep going trying never to let it take over without a fight.

"When you are content to be simply yourself and don't compare or compete, everybody will respect you." Lao-Tzu

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