When Dagmar was diagnosed with ALS at the age of 59 in 2010, she tapped into her nearly 30 years of professional experience. She not only follows her own wellness and fitness advice but also inspires and teaches others to do the same. Dagmar is a patient columnist at BioNews, writing “Living Well with ALS.” In addition, she is one of the moderators for the ALS News Today Forum and writes a personal blog called “ALS and Wellness.” She lives in Arizona, enjoying finding humor in life's situations, and spends her free time pursuing creative projects in fiber arts.
“Have you seen this?” The opening line of my friend’s email certainly caught my attention. Turns out my friend sent along a link to a website, one of the new online ALS resources that have been popping up lately. Eagerly I checked it out, and being pleased with…
Quick! Guess where I was the other day? Hint: I spent quality time with a few ghosts, goblins and vampires. Nope, I didn’t visit a haunted house – I went for a haircut! You sure can’t tell from the outside, but where I go has an explosion…
During my last visit to the ALS clinic, my neurologist surprised me with an invitation to be a participant in a clinical trial that she was conducting. It was open to 50 of her patients, it could be completed in our own homes, and only it required…
I began to notice something new during my first year of living with ALS. Every day around mid-afternoon, my energy would drop. Sleepiness, lack of concentration and a case of the blahs would creep in. Was this a brand new symptom of ALS? No, luckily not. But the…
Dear readers, this week my Living Well with ALS column will take a slightly different path down the road of wellness. Because, in the quest of living a balanced life, I’ve learned that humor is something we all need to incorporate into our days. And one of…
ALS is not only a confusing disease for those of us who have it, but it also throws our well-meaning friends into a tizzy. Friends who truly want to show their love and support are stymied as to what to do, how to act or what to bring.
A quote on a friend’s Facebook page caught my attention recently. Reading it was a reminder of how far I’ve come in learning to live with ALS. “It is not primarily our physical selves that limit us, but rather our mindset about…
Speak clearly Use a fork and knife when you eat Hand-write your thank you notes The above (plus a few more) were on my mother’s list of good manners that she expected me to follow when I was a kid. They certainly helped me through the years and proved…
It seems to me that learning to live with ALS now requires a crash course in Technology 101. Gone are the days of having to rely solely on other human beings for essential daily living needs. Today, both the ALS patient and their caregiver are receiving help…
I think we all can agree that ALS is one confusing disease. Confusing not only to medical experts worldwide, who can’t point to a cause or find a cure, but also it continues to be a mystery to most of the public at large. Heck, I didn’t even…
