Been WAITING to finally show this off! This is a piece I did for #zinepants , a charity Spongebob fanzine for the ALS Association! I got Mid-Life Crustacean as my episode, so I got to draw a really REALLY crusty crab. Check out all the great art being shared out by @spongebobzinepants
ALS champions in the U.S. House of Representatives introduced our annual ALS Appropriations Dear Colleague letter with the goal of enlisting their colleagues in our fight. Ask your member of Congress to sign today!
Hello everyone!
For those of you who don’t know me, I’m Laney and my mom was diagnosed with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) also known as Lou Gehrig’s Disease in July of 2021. It is a type of motor neuron disease. As motor neurons degenerate and die, they stop sending messages to the muscles, which causes the muscles to weaken, start to twitch, and waste away. Eventually, the brain loses its ability to initiate and control voluntary movements. There is no cure. My mother went from being a middle school principal to being unable to work due to instability and being unable to use her hands, to a year later being unable to walk or stand, and then 4 months ago she lost her ability to speak entirely. Through it all she has maintained a sense of peace. When she was first diagnosed and was entered into a research study, she told us that she may not see a cure found or benefit from it but at least in participating in research future patients will benefit from her contribution.
For those of you who live in the USA, Congress is voting on how much funding to grant to ALS research for the next fiscal year. The ALS association has a pre-written template email to send to your congressional representative at the quorum link above. All you have to do is enter your address and submit your email. ALS patients and families, like my own, are asking everyone to sign to support fully funding the ACT for ALS.
For those of you who are not in the USA, I would encourage you to reblog to boost the signal, but also consider checking out your country’s ALS associations to see how you can advocate for patients and families in your government. Some websites for ALS in other countries are:
Canada 🇨🇦: The ALS Society of Canada
UK🇬🇧: MND Association of England, Wales and N. Ireland, MND Scotland
Ireland🇨🇮: IMNDA
Germany🇩🇪: DGM
China🇨🇳: ORACC
Japan🇯🇵: JALSA
South Korea🇰🇷: KALSA
India🇮🇳: Asha Ek Hope Foundation for MND/ALS
Turkey🇹🇷: ALS-MNH Derneği
South Africa🇿🇦: MNDA of South Africa
Australia🇦🇺: Motor Neurone Disease Australia (MND Australia)
And there are even more! Find your country’s association HERE 🌍
Welcome to Connecting ALS. This week, Mike and Jeremy are joined by Sue Seabrook; a wife, a mom, a sister, and a caregiver for her mother living with ALS. Sue talks about the ways her family is embracing all the moments that matter in life.
Read more about the moments that matter to Sue at https://www.als.org/blog/my-mother-heartbeat-our-family
This episode was produced by Garrett Tiedemann and is brought to you by The ALS Association’s national office and the Association’s Minnesota/North Dakota/South Dakota Chapter.
Welcome to Connecting ALS. This week, Mike and Jeremy are joined by Rebecca Wetzel, an educator and philanthropist, who partnered with The ALS Association to launch the ALS Youth Challenge in 2019. Rebecca shares the inspiration behind the Youth Challenge, a unique virtual opportunity for kids to get involved in 2021, and how the Youth Challenge is empowering kids to raise awareness of ALS.
Youth Action Day is scheduled for May 15, 2021. Find ways to get kids in your neighborhood involved at https://www.als.org/get-involved/als-youth-challenge
To learn more about the ALS Youth Challenge, go to https://www.als.org/blog/challenging-youth-join-fight
This episode was produced by Garrett Tiedemann and is brought to you by The ALS Association’s national office and the Association’s Minnesota/North Dakota/South Dakota Chapter.
Welcome to Connecting ALS. This week, Mike and Jeremy talk to Dr. Chris Nowinski, co-founder and CEO of the Concussion Legacy Foundation, to check in on the state of research into the connection between frequent traumatic brain injuries and neurological diseases.
For more information about the need for more research into the connection between ALS and frequent brain injuries, go to https://www.als.org/blog/can-football-cause-als-look-research
Learn more about the Concussion Legacy Foundation at https://concussionfoundation.org/
This episode was produced by Garrett Tiedemann and is brought to you by The ALS Association’s national office and the Association’s Minnesota/North Dakota/South Dakota Chapter.
