I'm Dying to Tell You
I'm Dying to Tell You
Veterans, ALS and the Will to Fight!
This Veterans Day episode brings together three service members living with ALS—Liz Fassler (Army), Ron Faretra (Air Force), and John Hudacek (Army)—to share how the discipline, teamwork, and purpose they learned in uniform now guide them through life with this disease. They talk candidly about the realities of ALS, the unique challenges and resources available to veterans, and the importance of building a strong support team. Through stories from the field and insights from daily life, they offer both practical guidance and a reminder that courage doesn’t end when service ends—it evolves. Thanks for listening and sharing with a friend. Hugs, Lorri
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Hey, I'm Paul.
Christian Carey:And I'm Christian.
Paul Carey:Welcome to I'm Dying to Tell You. Inspiration shared by our mom who is dying from ALS.
Christian Carey:There's no cure for our mom or anyone else with ALS. But right now, she's on a mission to find and share stories of inspiration.
Paul Carey:Coming to you from Cincinnati, Ohio, we're happy to introduce the one lady we've both loved since the first day we laid eyes on her. The Queen of the Queen City, our mom, your host, Lorri.
Lorri Carey:Hi, I'm Lorri, your host of I'm Dying to Tell You. Thank you for being here. Okay, this episode is supposed to drop around Veterans Day. So, in honor of all the military veterans, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you for your service, for your courage, and your commitment. We really, really appreciate you. And to line up with Veterans Day, today I am talking to three military veterans. All of them living with ALS. And did you know that military veterans are twice as likely to get ALS as non-veterans? Twice as likely. They don't know why, but that's a fact. And the VA actually recognizes ALS as a service-connected disease. The three veterans that I'm talking to today are Liz Fassler, US Army veteran, Ron Faretra, US Air Force veteran, and John Hudacek, US Army veteran as well. Yeah, and I want to talk to them about not only their military experience, but also how that translates into their life now. I am so incredibly proud of my guests today. Okay, so let's jump on Zoom and get connected with Liz, Ron, and John and get started. Okay, let's go. So, Liz, Ron, John. Thank you all for agreeing to be on this special episode. Veterans Living with ALS. Also, thank you all for your service, for your sacrifices for our country. Thank you for everything that you've done in the military and that you are currently doing in our ALS community. So thank you all. I want to hear a little bit about your military background. Uh, Liz, do you want to start? Tell me a little bit about how you even got interested in the military and what you did.
Liz Fassler:Sure. I was raised in a service-oriented uh family, just in general, but my dad had been in the army in the 1960s, like a pre-Vietnam era, and he was in the 101st airborne, and I heard a lot of stories about his time in. Um, but at the time of going into high school, I had a cousin that was in junior ROTC, so I became interested in that, and then that sense of service and military-esque type of experience made me interested in going into the military as a career, and so I followed along into ROTC in college and then went into the military.
Lorri Carey:Okay. And tell me a little bit about your time.
Liz Fassler:And in my time in, I was never in one place for more than six months. Within a year, I was deployed to Saudi Arabia. So I wasn't in the army for very long comparatively, but I did um experience a deployment. That's also where I met my husband.
Lorri Carey:Oh, nice. Nice. Okay. Ron, tell me a little bit about what made you decide to go the military route.
Ron Faretra:Well, um starting off, my father was in the Navy uh during World War II in Korea. My mother was in the Coast Guard during World War II. I was in college until 1968. And 1968, we had a very active draft. We did not have a lottery back in 1968. 18-year-olds went first. So if you were a 20-year-old and you dropped out of college, then you become next. So I elected to go in the Air Force. I will admit right off the bat, my intention was to go in the Air Force, spend my four years, and get out. Air Force actually was more to my liking than I thought it would be. I was an aircraft loadmaster. I spent the first five years on C-130. Then I went to C-141 after Vietnam ended. There was absolutely no PCS moves for loadmasters. We kind of stayed where we were. I was here in Charleston for a very long time. After 21 years, I decided to quit flying and went to finance to learn a marketable skill for retirement. And I did that. I thoroughly loved the Air Force. I did a lot of neat things in the Air Force. I did lots of airdrop testing, uh, both on the C-130 and the 141. Love doing airdrop. Nothing better than standing on the back of the standing in the back ramp of the airplane with it open, hanging on and just looking at the scenery as you fly along.
Lorri Carey:Well, for some of us. Oh thank you for sharing that. John, what about you?
John Hudacek:Well, I got into the military because for us, I want to say it was more or less the family business. My dad was career air force. Uh, and in our family, it was very well spoken. If you're a male, you're going in the military. If you're female, you're gonna get married. But one way or the other, you you're out of the house at 18. Yeah. So even though my two brothers went Air Force, the recruiter down where I was didn't quite know his stuff well enough. And so I ended up going into the army because I got a better financial deal and then started from there. And then, very much like Ron, once I got in, you get hooked. It doesn't matter what uniform you wear, they're all the same at some level. So I started off as an infantryman. So I may have jumped out of some of the C 130s and 141s that Ron was loadmaster on back when I was in Savannah or Bragg. And the enlisted side, every time you re-enlist, if you choose, if there's an opening, you can change jobs. And so I took advantage of that after four years of carrying a rucksack and sleeping in the rain. I became air crew on a very small two-seat, two-turboprop airplane that the Army had for aerial intelligence, radars and photos and stuff. And so I was on flight status, which is funny. I was in the Army on flight status, and none of my Air Force family ever was. Did that for about eight years, but two years of that was being a drill sergeant, working on career progression and doing the right ticket punches. When I got up at about the 10-year mark, my job was undergoing a transformation. So I jumped ship again and started at 12 years of service into a third job, and that was being a medic in special forces. So the pipeline training of that was almost two years long. Finished up with in that particular world, being on a team, being on an A team is what you want to do. That's why you go through the training. So luckily, I was able to stay on a team for the rest of my time and I retired out at 20 because I wanted to be able enough and not broken down that I could have a second career, even though I didn't have a marketable skill like Ron. At least I had one semi-working knee and one broken knee. But yeah, so I got out after 20.
Lorri Carey:Wow. You have had quite the experience. Is there something that each of you can share an experience, an adventure, good or bad, that has stuck with you that when you tell someone about that you served like that story always comes to mind. Liz?
Liz Fassler:Yeah, there's a couple. One of them is the deployment. Not that deployments are fun, they're not meant to be fun, but I had never been out of the country, save for going down to Mexico because I grew up in Arizona. I had never been out of the country. So that wet my whistle to learn about other cultures and experience, experience the world outside of just my little area of growing up. So um, and that's proved to be true to this day that we've been to different countries in Europe several times and have a trip planned for October. The other thing is um I was not in a job that um necessarily warranted going to airborne school and getting my jump wings. Um, and then it's more unique for a female to do it. Um so I am proud of that. I'm proud to be able to say that I jumped successively out of airplanes five times, but that was also carrying on a legacy. Um like I said, my father was a hundred and first airborne, and that was a goal of mine was to attend airborne school. And so I'm quite proud of that.
Lorri Carey:Absolutely, that's amazing, and I can imagine the pride of your father as well. Yeah, that's great. John?
John Hudacek:Okay, uh, two stories that stand out to me. One was early in the career and one was late. Early in the career. Ron remembered this, but I'm not sure about Liz or you, Lori. Back in 1979, the Iranian students had captured 52 hostages and held them in Tehran. And I was in the right unit at the right time to be on that rescue mission. Although we didn't get further than our forward deployment base in Egypt. My unit would have been the one on the second day to go in and capture the airfield that we would all flight the helicopters to transload on the airplanes and then fly out. And even though the mission didn't happen, if it would have happened, the trajectory of my life would have changed tremendously, but it ended in disaster with uh C-130 and a couple of helicopters burning up. We lost eight lives. But to be on a mission like that, one of those true missions you couldn't talk about for many years, was a high point of my life. Uh, and the other part was later on when I was in special forces, much more mature and old. I'm a floor, I'm a Floridian. And so I don't do cold and I don't do hills. And I ended up being in the group assigned to Europe. And not only did I have to learn to ski with military stuff, I had to sleep in the snow and be happy about it. So that was a challenge of me. But the one thing that sticks out about that whole experience of living in the mountains in the snow for half the year is I learned that you do ski uphills. You you go uphills, across hills, downhills, you do everything on skis. And that includes with your rucksack carrying all your life support stuff, plus the mission stuff. And it was just not recreational downhill skiing by no means. Uh it was it was the gut check from from heck.
Lorri Carey:Wow. And you made it. You made it. You did it. Yeah.
John Hudacek:I did, yep.
Lorri Carey:Ron, what about you? What what's something that's just stuck with you that you want to share?
Ron Faretra:First, I have to tell John. John, the 141 for that mission, yeah, was out of Charleston and a lot of my friends were on it.
John Hudacek:I was had because I was down to Savannah. So yeah, we Charleston 141 probably flew us over. So I'm I'm glad that we have an association on that, Ron.
Ron Faretra:Yep. The first thing that comes to mind is how I grew up. You know, I told you I dropped out of college at 20. Um, and I dropped out of college at 20 because of A, my grades were bad, and B, I hadn't paid for the first year before I wanted to start the third year. I was just a young kid. I didn't know anything about Vietnam, to tell you the truth, other than it was something that was on the news. And and like most kids, I didn't watch the news. So my very first trip out of Charleston, we went from here to go to Delaware, picked up a plane load of 5-K explosives. It was all Howard's shells. Um, I don't remember whether they were 105s or 155s, but we carried them to Alaska. We get off the airplane, another crew takes the airplane, and the airplane keeps moving. The crews get to sleep somewhere. The next mission we had, we had a plane load of rations. The third mission we had, we had a plane load of mail. And then we ended up in Bangkok, Thailand. We left and we started back home. Well, coming back home, we got to, we just had regular old cargo till we got to Japan. Going from Japan to Alaska, we had um an Arabac mission with some wounded troops on it. And then we carried it in Alaska. And then when we left Alaska, I went out to the airplane and I looked at the load, and we had a whole bunch of transfer cases on there. People that had been killed in action. And um that's when I grew up. I'll be honest with you. I mean, I was just a dumbass teenager. Uh and and that grew me up real fast on the the lighter side of memories while I was stationed at Pope. At that time we did a thing called late low-altitude paraticing systems. And um, in Vietnam, we dropped a lot of ammo and a lot of fuel that way. And somebody decided at Pope that we needed to learn how to drop a Sheridan tank. So I worked with the Army and we made probably about 10 Sheridan tank airdrops. You come in about 10 feet off the ground. One chute pulls out three chutes that pulls the load right out and it plops down on the ground and slides along, and there you have it. It's pretty hard to mix your target. It's a good airdrop system, but it required pilots that were extremely good. Uh you have a 35,000 pound object going out of the airplane. The airplane all of a sudden is 35,000 pounds lighter, and it's gets a little hard to control. Unfortunately, they had two crashes fairly close to each other and and they stopped it. But that was a highlight of my career, I think, was actually working with the army on how to get that rigged and airdrop safely.
Lorri Carey:Yeah. Yeah. Well, again, thank you all for for what you've done and just continuing to be out helping, you know, other people and helping this community. I was just curious, did you all know anything about ALS or and or ALS and the military connection when you were in the okay, you're all shaking your heads no. No. So did you know about ALS? No. Not even so. You didn't know about ALS, you didn't know about that there was a connection.
John Hudacek:I never learned to say the word amyotrophic, so therefore, if I couldn't pronounce it, I didn't it was Lou Gehrig's disease. I knew it existed, had no idea what it was.
Lorri Carey:Right, right. Right, right. Yeah. Isn't that crazy? Like, no one talked about it. I mean, my husband also said when I was diagnosed, Lou Gehrig's disease, that's not a thing anymore. You know, associating that with something that has been around for a long time, therefore, probably already gotten a cure. Yeah, yeah.
John Hudacek:Yeah.
Lorri Carey:Thinking about where you are now, you are all living with ALS. Do you think that there is something that you learned in the military that has helped you all live with this disease a little bit better? You know, like has prepared you. Does anyone have any thoughts on that?
Ron Faretra:I think the military taught you to accept what you have. Um whether we're talking about eating food or or a place to sleep or where you get stationed. It taught you just, you know, make the best of what you have. Um and when you get diagnosed with ALS, you get angry and then one of two things happens, at least that's my perspective, that it's what I've seen and all of the people that I've met with ALS. You either become very angry, you just get pissed off and you become a hermit and sit at home. Or you decide I am pissed off, I'm gonna do something about this, and and you start fighting, if you will, the disease. Um you do the kind of things that that you can do. You continue to do stuff, you continue to exercise, you continue to get involved.
Lorri Carey:Yeah, yeah. And you all are doing that. You all are doing that.
Ron Faretra:Yeah.
Lorri Carey:Uh, which is remarkable. So John.
John Hudacek:And then from my experience, adding to that, all that what Ron says is true. Yeah. And as I became more of a senior uh sergeant, you're much more involved with the planning. And in special forces, in particular, everything is around the planning and coming up with contingencies. If this happens, we do that. If this happens, we do that. And you know, you have matrices all over that you can never foresee every circumstance, but you try to cover as many as you can beforehand. And so once I got my diagnosis, I launched back into that mindset. Gather information, assess it, see what you can do, what you can't do, what's probable, what's possible. And me having a routine to fall back on helped me on this because as we all know, nobody knows enough to give you to answer your questions. You have to search it out. And so, fortunately for me, I've been connected with some great people that led me on the right path, not just doing Google searches and hoping for the best.
Lorri Carey:Yeah, yeah. It all comes back to that community. Right. Yeah. Liz, how about you?
Liz Fassler:I can't say it any better than both the gentleman, but an extra added layer for me has been that my husband was also military. So that's how we are handling this. That it's like, oh, a new issue or a new challenge. Let's MacGyver it and you know, let's plan for it and let's accept where we're at. Like uh Ron was saying, like sometimes in the military you're plopped into undesirable situations, and this is a big undesirable situation. So um it's just that also that stoicism that we get from being in the military, it helps to persevere. And like Ron said, it's not that it does ALS doesn't affect us, we just are given different tools in our kit to manage this.
Lorri Carey:Yeah, that's great. My mom and dad were both in the army, and my mom was tough, you know, and uh always say like I got the greatest gift from her because I'm pretty strong. I'm in a fighter, and you know, yeah, I can see all that. Today, is there something in particular right now that is a real challenge?
John Hudacek:I'll go first if nobody minds. Okay. Uh for me right now, I was fortunate in that I lost use of my left non-dominant arm first, and that went on for about three and a half years. Over the course of the last year, my right arm is catching up. So I am learning to live with every day there's something I can't do. I can't plug a jack into a telephone to charge it up. I can't zip my pants up anymore. I can't do little things that I can't pick up a 12-ounce bottle and drink from it. I can't lift my elbow high enough. So I'm trying to figure out the workarounds to get over all this. And I cannot allow myself to think of myself as not being able to use both of my arms. It scares me so much, even though I know it's coming. I I try and focus on what I can do to mitigate what's going on right now. So my biggest challenge is, you know, for every physical thing that happens with ALS, no matter what, there's a mental aspect that goes along with that. No doubt that the two match. And trying to stay positive and remind myself that I can still breathe, I can still talk, I can still stand up and sit down and walk. I can do a lot of things many of my brothers and sisters can't, but it is a challenge because upper limb onsets, one of those smaller ones. Although we all have some phase of it, for me, it's getting to be uh the predominant identifying feature for me.
Lorri Carey:Yeah, I get that.
Ron Faretra:For me, it's kind of like John said, it's what I can't do anymore that drives me crazy. I guess it was about two months ago the toilet was messing up. And I thought, oh, I just need to change that. I used to clean apartments in my younger years as a second job. I've always built things, I've always taken stuff apart and put it back together. It'll take me 15 minutes. Two and a half hours later, I finally got done a job that should take 15 minutes. You only have to unscrew one thing, pull it out, put the new one in, screw the piece on. And most of my ALS is in my legs. Um I have a some problem with my fingers not wanting to work right. Either that or it's my keyboard that's not working right on the typewriter. But that to me is the frustrating thing. My wife won't let me get on a stepladder. She threatened me with death.
Lorri Carey:Um rightly so.
Ron Faretra:You know, a light bulb needs changing, uh, and I can't change it. It's it's something that was second nature. Yeah, and and that's frustrating to me.
Liz Fassler:Yeah. Yeah. Liz. Yeah, I would say while now everything is seemingly to be impacted, um, and I'm a slower progressor. So I I've never really like had one area accelerate so much faster compared to other areas. Um I am a respiratory uh predominant, I guess. So needing support throughout the day is difficult. And in as much as it's not a visible thing, like, you know, if somebody's having trouble opening a door, um, be it because their arms are no longer functioning, or they're in a wheelchair and just navigating the door and a walker or wheelchair, this is internal. And so people don't understand the impact and can't really help at all with that, and not enough. Being impacted respiratorily also affects like your speech and your thinking, and um that just adds an extra layer of having to deal with the ALS.
Lorri Carey:Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Yeah. You all have a lineage to the power of a community. Is there anything that when you think about where you are now in the ALS community that you're you know gaining strength from and you all are giving back to in such a great way? Is there anything that is so similar within your military family and your ALS family that you look back now, you can really, really be a testament to?
John Hudacek:Yeah, in a way, you know, the thing about the military is you don't get to pick your teammates. They're chosen for you. You get whoever's thrown together and you make stuff work. You don't like everybody, but at the end of the day, when you accomplish the mission, you have this great sense, or even better, at the end of a field problem or a deployment, or you know, some coin, you know, you really feel great, but then the whistle blows and everyone goes their own way. And so for me, this ALS has been like a deployment for me. You get put into a new circumstance, you're out with strange surroundings you don't know, so you band together with other people and you bond similar to the way you do, in my opinion, in the military. You make connections to help you over rough spots, and likewise, you help other people that may be having difficulties with the same goal, the same mission in mind. For us, obviously, a cure is great, but in the absence of a cure, live the best life you can today. And so I do see similarities from the military and the ALS community.
Lorri Carey:Oh, I love that so much. Ron and Liz, anything on that?
Ron Faretra:I agree with what John said. Um, I've met a lot of people with ALS. And to tell you the truth, there's none of them that really make me angry. There's some that frustrate me every now and then, but nobody makes me angry. We're all, in all honesty, Lori, the most wonderful people in the world.
John Hudacek:I know. I know.
Ron Faretra:The most caring people, they'll pretty much do anything for you. I even have somebody who's willing to give me one of his legs if I will give him one of my arms. Um, and and John's probably gonna say, wait a minute, add me to that list.
Lorri Carey:He's like, wait a minute, yeah. He's like, I thought we were friends here.
Ron Faretra:That's that's really kind of what's wonderful about it.
John Hudacek:Yes.
Ron Faretra:And like John said, it's like in the military, you you work with who who you have to work with.
John Hudacek:Now, if if I can add on a little bit to that, there's a lot, there's a lot of animosity, let's say, good natured, hopefully, but sometimes not, between the people doing the work, the enlisted corps and the officers. They don't always communicate well together, they live in separate worlds, and that's just the nature of the beast. The military wouldn't exist without that. But in the ALS community, as I meet more doctors and clinicians, they are, if I had commanders in the military that treated me with the dignity and respect and kindness that the research doctors and their team do, I would have stayed forever. I know people care about me as a person, and I've only seen that in this ALS community, not medicine in general, but in this this particular sphere.
Liz Fassler:Yep. And I just wanted to add on to what John said, and that is unique about the ALS community is that it seems to be and is continuing to be a patient-centered, patient-driven disease community. Yeah. And they respect us for our knowledge and experience in helping them find a cure.
Lorri Carey:And so, so powerful, so powerful. And talking about community and being, you know, so effective coming together as a team. What are you guys working on that is specific to those that are living with ALS and that were military veterans?
Ron Faretra:One of the things that veterans have that people with ALS that aren't veterans don't have is veterans get virtually everything they need. We're given a lot of money to redo our house, we're given we're given uh vehicle to carry our wheelchair in, we're given top-of-the-line wheelchairs, top-of-the-line equipment. One of the things that kind of has been a mandate for me to try to do is to try to convince our legislatures to make the equipment that's given out to people in Medicaid and Medicare to be the same quality equipment that the VA gives us. There's I mean, it's totally different. I use the example as a walker all the time. You can go to Walmart and buy a walker for less than a hundred bucks and it probably will last you not very long. But you have to keep it five years, otherwise Medicare and Medicare won't replace it. Um the VA will give you a walker that's like a tank. Uh and the same with wheelchairs. And I think the one thing that veterans need to do, all veterans, is not brag about what they get from the VA, but work with their local politicians to get that change. Because if if Medicare and Medicaid buy into it like they did with the lift done on the wheelchair, what was it, two years ago, then local insurances will follow. And to me, that's the one thing I think that people can do, that veterans can do is for others.
Lorri Carey:Yeah. I love that. I think I remember talking to Shelley Hoover a while ago, and she was kind of saying the same thing, and I even think that she might have referred to it as like veterans' guilt or, you know, something that um just kind of unfair that everyone doesn't have access to that quality.
Liz Fassler:But also, as I'm learning through doing this, through um being part of different organizations outside of veterans with ALS specific organizations, is that the VA strives to treat our veterans both with the benefits as far as durable medical goods, but also a higher level of excellence when it comes to care. And what benefits the veterans will eventually benefit the general ALS population as the medical community sees that initiatives are being beneficial for veterans, then it might become more commonplace to help out the rest of the community. The veteran healthcare system is known for its education of newer people new to the medical field where they're doing the residencies. And so diminishing what the veteran, the VA in general, will also slow the pipeline of neurologists and OTs, PTs, etc., out into the general population, which would impact the whole ALS community. And so our two communities are more related and symbiotic than anyone in general realizes. And we as veterans with ALS are working towards communicating more openly about what's going on within the VA and the differences and the disparaging, you know, points of care in general. And so there's a hope that we can be successful with making it better for all.
Lorri Carey:Yeah, yeah. It's like eyes on me, eh, John.
John Hudacek:Okay, and and to add on to both of those, I think in veterans' health care altogether, for every veteran, no matter why they're in the system, is to speak up. If you see something wrong, you see something you don't like. It's a challenging, bureaucratic, slow system. But if nobody says anything, nothing will ever change. And if anything, benefits will lose or be lost unless someone stands up. So no matter where you are in the VA system, but specifically for us with a shorter shelf life, more than likely, we need to let people know what we're going through. And if we don't do that, we're failing not just ourselves, but our communities.
Lorri Carey:Um, any advice to someone who is just diagnosed and is a veteran?
John Hudacek:Okay. Make sure they get associated with an uh VA S C I D with an ALS center. Number two, make sure you get together with your PVA rep and let them file all the stuff. You have no idea what that pile of paperwork is, but they do. So those are the two things. Get the right treatment, doctor, and see your representative to get your benefits started.
Lorri Carey:Okay, perfect. Um, does anyone have a uh a favorite motto or saying that you currently live by?
John Hudacek:I've got two of them. One I learned uh at a at a VA event a couple years ago. Don't tell me what you can't do, show me what you can do. And the other thing that keeps me focused and guided along, if you ever read or saw The Lord of the Rings, when Frodo was given the ring and he didn't know if he wanted to undertake the mission. And Gandalf more or less said, it's up to you, you've got to do this. And Gandalf the wise wizard said, uh, now I got to think of the exact wording. The question to you is, what will you do with the time that you have been given? And for me, the the fact that our life is a gift that we should use, and we should use it no matter how long or how short it is, helps guide me through. And of course, in that movie, Frodo does make it to Mordor and throw the ring away and successful. And I've known enough uh a few long-term people like you, Lori, and like Ron, that I have faith and hope that this is not a fruitless journey.
Liz Fassler:Yeah, yeah. And Liz. So this is in my signature on one of my email accounts, and it kind of ties into John's Lord of the Rings. But this quote is from Dek Van Dyck, actually, and he said, Don't be scared of dying, be more frightened that you haven't finished living. And as we all have said, that we're more aware of a end time than other diseases because of the nature of ALS. And we're not in fear. Well, I won't say that we're not in fear of dying, but in the meantime, we're continuing to live, and because of our backgrounds, we're also continuing the fight until that time. Yeah.
Ron Faretra:I have uh a quote from a wing commander that used to be here at Charleston. Most of the veterans, I hope, know his name. Thomas Mikolaich. He's the one that actually fought to get ALS to be considered a presumptive military disease. But he always used to say, we need to start strong, we need to stay strong, and we need to finish strong. And uh and I try to do that every day.
Lorri Carey:Yeah, well, you can see that. Thank you. Okay, I have one last question. Liz, what are you dying to tell us?
Liz Fassler:I'm dying to tell you that there is life after diagnosis.
Lorri Carey:Perfect. Yeah, there is for sure. John, what are you dying to tell us?
John Hudacek:I'm dying to tell people to don't focus on what they cannot take care of, but focus on what you can. Live your life to the fullest. And if you can still pursue your passions, great if you can't find a new passion, but do something to get you out of bed in the morning, and at the end of the day, you can say, I lived my life today.
Lorri Carey:I love that. I love that. Oh my gosh. And I talk to so many people who are finding new passions in this season of life or how to adapt their lifelong passion to be able to continue to still do it. So it's great. Uh so Ron, what are you dying to tell us?
Ron Faretra:I'm dying to tell you why I go to a swimming pool every day and swim. Right after I was diagnosed, I had a friend whose mother died of ALS a long time ago and they didn't do anything for you. She was going to a pool every day to do water aerobics. And she kept bugging me about it, then she got my wife bugging me about it. So I went to shut her up. August 4th was my seventh year of going to that pool. Um, and and I'm dying to tell you that I still believe that the reason why I was able to walk up until about six months ago, that is why.
Lorri Carey:Yeah, that's great. Find a way, find a way. I know I was told 21 years ago, do not exercise. Do not exercise. You're gonna burn motor neurons that eventually you'll need to walk. Scared me, didn't do anything for a year, got more depressed about not doing anything, and then I just started easing back into what I like to do in a different way, a safer way. So I get that. Yeah, I agree, totally agree. Okay, thank you all so so much for being here. Thank you for your service, your military service, your current service to our precious community. Like, I just really appreciate all of you and all that you're doing, and thank you for sharing your journeys and the importance of ALS advocacy, even for all of our veterans. So, thank you all for being here.
John Hudacek:Nice meeting you, Lori. Thank you, Lori.
Lorri Carey:Okay, all right, thank you guys. All right, bye-bye. Bye. Thank you again, Liz, Ron, and John for coming on and for sharing all your experience. And to my listeners, I am gonna put in the show notes how you can get connected to a couple of groups specifically for veterans living with ALS. And I'll put links in the show notes that you can find on Facebook and the website, both at I'm Dying to Tell You podcast. So obviously, the connection between ALS and military service is a real area of concern and with ongoing research needed uh to fully understand the why. So, another reason why ALS research is so, so important. Thank you for listening today. And in honor of Veterans Day, if you would share this episode to let other people know how veterans are twice as likely to be diagnosed with ALS, that would be really helpful. So thank you for that, and if you want to stay connected, you can find me pretty much everywhere on social media, all at I'm Dying To Tell You podcast, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, and TikTok. You can find me there. Until next time, no, you are loved. And I'm alone. Thanks for listening.
Christian Carey:Thank you for listening to our mom. Make sure to visit her website at I'm dying to tell you podcast.com, where you'll find photos and show notes about this episode. If you like the show, please subscribe to the podcast and share it with a friend. Thank you.