trauma

As a caregiver for my husband, Todd, who has ALS, I’ve experienced numerous traumas in the 14 years that we’ve been living with the disease. Our lives were shattered with Todd’s diagnosis, which occurred when our daughter was 4 and our son was 9 months old. I…

An old friend stopped by with a gift of homegrown microgreens. She’s a retired nurse, and she used to help with nighttime care for my husband, Todd, who has ALS. She visited for a while, and we updated her on Todd’s health and decline in lung strength. I…

On occasion, I’ll page through the photo books my husband, Todd, made for me as Christmas gifts. I feel a sense of gratitude as I look back on all we’ve been able to do since his ALS diagnosis. Family game nights. Outings to sporting events. Family movie nights. Several…

“Oh yes, I am wise, but it’s wisdom born of pain. — “I Am Woman,” Helen Reddy “Gain from pain” is not a new concept. The notion can be traced back several millennia to “The Ethics of the…

Years before my husband was diagnosed with ALS, I coordinated a tutoring program in Milwaukee. Many of the children and teens I worked with lived with stress and instability in their homes and neighborhoods. For some kids, just consistently showing up to school and the tutoring program was an accomplishment…

Repeated severe trauma to the body or mild injuries to the head — especially at midlife — raise a person’s risk of ALS, a European case-control study from the EURALS consortium shows. The new research, “Trauma and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis: a european population-based case-control study from…