Hello everyone, as we all know the season of giving and caring and good will towards men is fastly approaching. I was thinking about it and many people get that feeling they need to do charitable acts and donate. December 12th will be the 6 month anniversary of my dad's passing. So I am trying to get people to do a good act and donate $6 (for the 6 months) by or on the 12th to my dad's memorial fund. I really do not talk about the specifics of my dads passing but I have decided that for this cause it is well worth sharing with you all. http://web.alsa.org/goto/brent.reichert

For those of you that do not know what his fund supports it helps to fund research to find a cure or some sort of treatment for Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, it is a type of Muscular Dystrophy. There is no treatment or cure for this disease. What happens (in layman’s terms) is the brain is no longer able to send messages to the muscles of the body and when this occurs the unused muscles begin to atrophy (waste away). This effects all muscles eventually. As in my dad’s case it started with his back muscles and his facial muscles. It then progressed to the muscles in his mouth (tongue and throat) and then continued to destroy the muscles that helped him to breathe. This resulted in his death. In many it effects the arms and legs long before the chest muscles. ALS is a disease that literally makes a person a prisoner in their own body. Their mental capacities are fully in tack but they are no longer able to move or talk. This is the same disease that the baseball great Lou Gehrig had. The most frightening thing about this disease that the majority of the people who have this disease have no history of it in their family, it just happens randomly. It is possible that it can be passed genetically but only a 10% chance. To put in persepective I as well as my brothers have the possibility that this gene may lie within us. We may share the same fate of our dad when we turn 53 also.

Let me tell you that this has been a disease around for a long time and there is still no treatment (with the exception of a medication that can prolong life for 3 months) and no cure. In this day and age we have the capabilities to cure this.

I plead to everyone that this is a horrible disease to watch progress. My family watched helplessly for 8 months while my dad digressed from a healthy 53 year old man able to work in the yard and smile to a man that could not even swallow his own saliva or lift a vacuum cleaner. I know that this is pretty deep stuff to share but I would just like for you all to understand the devastation this disease causes to not only the person who is diagnosed but the people they love that have to watch it progress.

My dad was a good man who was taken too young. This disease robbed Brandon of having his father at his wedding. It robbed Christopher of having his father at his college graduation. It robbed me of having someone to walk me down the aisle on my wedding day. It robbed my mom of having any more anniversaries with the love of her life. But most importantly it robbed this world of having an amazingly funny and caring human being to make the world a better place.

So I plead to you all as you spend your Thanksgiving and Christmas with your family to think of those who have a piece of their familial puzzle missing. Be thankful for your family and their health. But if this note at all speaks to you please take the time to donate $6 to my dad’s memorial fund so we can have one less family that has to experience this horrible disease.

To get a better idea of what this disease looks like I have a link to a video that is a representation of ALS.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8AVsuKrpmI4