When Dave Dodds woke up feeling pain and weakness in his arms and shoulders one day last fall, he assumed it was the result of a weekend marathon session screen-printing 1,000 shirts at his Brantford, On., apparel printing shop, Fat Dave’s. But he had also been struggling to put his jeep’s roof on and off over the summer, which was unusual. “I just wrote it off to getting old,” says the 49-year-old.
When the pain persisted and the weakness worsened, he saw his family doctor, who diagnosed a possible torn rotator cuff. After a few months of physiotherapy showed no improvement, his physiotherapist ran some reflex tests. “He thought it was neurological, and sent a report back to my GP. From there, everything went into overdrive,” says Dodds of the wave of appointments that quickly followed.
By January of this year, he saw a neurologist, who scheduled an MRI. He then met with a specialist at the Neurological Diagnosis Centre at St. Joseph’s Healthcare in Hamilton, who ran a series of blood tests, scans and an electromyography (EMG) test to measure muscle response. In mid-March, he got the diagnosis: he had amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS, a motor neuron disease that, according to the ALS Society of Canada, causes progressive paralysis when the brain no longer tells the body’s muscles to move. As the muscles deteriorate, those living with ALS will lose the ability to walk, talk, eat, swallow and, eventually, breathe. “Either I’m lucky or I’m oblivious and it still hasn’t hit me yet,” says Dodds of his diagnosis. To learn more about his journey — and ALS — click here to read my latest piece for Postmedia’s Healthing section.
Robin Roberts 