ALS Challenge

Happy Friday, everyone!! In honor of raising awareness for various causes, I thought I would post my video for the ALS ice bucket challenge. First of all, though, I had some issues with the overall challenge. In some places in this country, we are in a drought, so it didn't always make sense to me why this was the challenge at hand. Since starting the challenge across the facebook world, however, billions of people have learned what ALS is: a horrible disease that deserves awareness and needs as many people donating to support continuous research. It is also called Lou Gehrigs disease due to the famous baseball player being striken with it at the highlight of his career and dying from it at a young age. ALS stands for Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, and it is a neurodegenerative disorder that attacks the brain and spinal cord. The motor neurons degenerate, and they are no longer able to send signals to the muscle fibers resulting in lack of movement, and eventually, paralysis of the total body. It is a terrible, degenerating disease that deserves all the attention it could possibly get. SO, we decided to do the ice bucket challenge after all, just using an alpine waterfall instead (because we were still concerned about the drought on the west coast resulting in wild fires). 

My Video!

My husband's proof that he actually did it (since I failed with taking the video):

It is also sad to see so much money go to the CEO's of such corporations, such as the ALS Foundation, instead of towards research. I am fully aware that there are other costs behind operating such a huge foundation, and not every penny can go to research. But, can't we all agree that these CEO's do not need such a big salary when we are struggling to keep research ongoing? As a researcher myself, I can tell you there is not enough money in the world being focused on all that needs to be investigated in the medical world (not to mention so many other specialties). It is nice to see figures like this, though, concerning the ALS Challenge (read article below):

Forbes Account of the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge

I would love to see more attention geared towards other horrible conditions, as well. Four very close to my heart are testicular cancer, multiple sclerosis, lupus, and syringomyelia. You can read about them in the following links:

Testicular Cancer

Multiple Sclerosis

Lupus 

Syringomyelia

Let's raise more awareness for these and other disorders, diseases, and illnesses! :)