ALS , It realy hurts when it hit's HOME.

CROOKERHANCOX HOME INSEPCTIONS INC.  is proud to support Bill and his fight with ALS see here http://www.alsa.org/als/what.cfm  for some info on this terrible disease.                                                                                                      To let you all in on a little of what I know about Bill. I have only been lucky enough to know Bill for a short time as I had the great pleasure of meeting him after I started to lure my girl friend Peg (Now my wonderful Wife) into my world. Not really knowing or realizing that I was going to be blesssed with becoming Bill's brother in-law, you see, Peg's sister Madonna is Bills wife. I kept hearing all about this sister Madonna and brother in-law that some call Wink, and all the great things they had done for Peg and her son Jerry before I ever came along. Well I have to tell you that really put the bar up high for a guy like me to try and reach.  They were always there to help them, and to try and list it all would take too long. Over the years leading up to now Bill has been more like a brother than a brother in law. We talked once of older and younger brothers and who would be which, and so Bill said "we should be twins", so that is where the twin thing comes from.  I am now just realizing how much that really means to me. All I know is that I am really glad Peg let me into her world and become a brother to Bill. All we are trying to do with this site and The Bill (Harland) McAdam's Fund is to try and educate everyone about ALS and get Family and Friends to Help to Fight ALS!!!                                                                                                                                                           So please have a look at these links http://www.als.ca/events/mysite.aspx?   fid=2407http://www.als.ca/events/mysite.aspx?fid=2283 to our ALS event sites and if you get the urge to help and support all the families that have to life with this terrible disease then please do so. Why not join in on the walk in Sept., or donate a little.  At CROOKERHANCOX we are going to donate $10.00 from every inspection we do from June 22^nd 2008 until the walk in London on Sept. 27^th 2008. If a client says they read this and pay for an inspection in this time frame we will donate 10% of the fee in the clients name to the ALS walk. So please tell everyone you know about my TWIN BROTHER BILL.                                                                                                                                                                         This is an article that is going into the Grandbend paper, it is Bill's story. 

TORTURED BY SPORADIC ALS

Laura Jackson

Bill McAdam first had a suspicion that something was peculiar in his body when he was helping his son build a shed and noticed the grip of left hand getting weaker.

For over a year previous he had experienced muscle weakness, soreness and fatigue- all of which are also side effects of medication he was on to lower his cholesterol.

"I went to the doctor to complain about the drugs but when I stopped taking them I didn't experience any difference," he explains.

"I was working 12 hour shifts with the Ministry of Transportation, so I figured it was old age or shift work that was making me tired."

In late January 2008, he went to his family doctor reporting muscle twitches in his shoulder and chest.

McAdam, turning 58 this week, has since moved from Grand Bend to London, Ontario, where he receives care from the ALS team at Western University, headed by Dr. Michael Strong.

"There's no easy way to break it to someone," Dr. Strong admits, "on average patients will live three to five years after diagnosis, but we have had some patients that live up to twenty years."

Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), otherwise known as Lou Gehrig's disease, is a devastating neurodegenerative disorder that wipes out motor nerve cells in the brain and spinal chord.

"I was shocked when I got the diagnosis. I couldn't believe it would happen to me," he recalls, "there's no history of it in my family or any disease like it."

"Over ninety percent of ALS cases occur sporadically while less then ten percent have a familial genetic link," clarifies Bobbi Greenberg, the director of communications of the ALS Society of Canada. 

Although the disease manifests itself differently in everyone, the symptoms commonly appear first as tripping and dropping things, progress through an inability to walk, sit, or hold up the hold up the head and eventually envelop the muscles used to swallow saliva and breathe.

For others, the muscles controlling speaking, swallowing and breathing are targeted first, which characterizes Bulbar ALS.

McAdams depicts how rapid the symptoms have progressed as of late, "Six months ago I could march around for 10 hours a day, but now I can't walk 50 feet without a walker."

"Everyday is different. But I know today is going to be better than tomorrow in terms of what I'm going to be able to do."

Tragically, there is currently no cure for the disease that McAdams describes as ‘torture'. The medication Riluzole provides some patients with a few extra months to live.

ALS is particularly tough to treat because its progression is more rapid than that of either Parkinson's or Alzheimer's disease.

June is ALS awareness month. The ALS communities, as well as scientists, are feeling the push for more research.

"The greatest hurdle is to identify the most basic mechanisms through which the neurons die and then find ways to block that progression," explains Dr. Shawn Hayley of the Institute of Neuroscience at Carleton University.

"If we could identify biomarkers early on to identify who may express the disease later, it may provide the time needed to make work any treatments that we do find."

"It's amazing how much we don't know about our bodies." McAdams has found. And in the same respect it's amazing how much more we need to learn about our brains.