Steve Meersman and his son Alex watch ‘The Daily Show’ and share some laughs at home Dec. 12 during their nightly routine of going to bed.



Hospice chaplain Maria Cox McLain comforts Steve during a moment of difficult breathing. The last four days of Steve’s life were spent sleeping or trying to breathe.


The long goodbye
Family faces nightmare of ALS
By JASON KOSENA
JasonKosena@coloradoan.com


Steve Meersman's long goodbye started with a benign fall. At 38, he was taking the garbage out when he tripped over his own legs.

Within a few weeks, he had lost movement in his left hand.

Two years later, he was dead.

"This is your worst nightmare. With your mind sharp, having total sensation, but complete paralysis," Steve wrote in a blog he kept. "Stephen King couldn't come up with a worse scenario. ... Then you find out that there is no treatment, no way to reverse it and no one is ever cured."

A retired Air Force surgeon, Steve was two years into a private practice in New Hampshire when he was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, known as ALS, or Lou Gehrig's disease.

A short time later, Steve, who attended Rocky Mountain High School and Colorado State University, was forced to abandon his dream of a career in surgery to move back to Fort Collins to be near family and friends.

As a doctor, he knew his life would be cut short by ALS, a fatal neurodegenerative disease that attacks voluntary muscle functions throughout the brain and spinal cord.

Steve's battle with ALS ended April 1 at Hospice of Larimer County. His memorial service was Friday in Fort Collins.

For the last seven months of Steve's life, Coloradoan photojournalist Michael Seamans captured him as his health declined and his family coped with the inevitable loss of the man they loved.

As the family provided Steve's primary care, Michael recorded their struggle, spending days at a time looking through the lens, scribing their moments into history.

At times, life dictated that Michael put aside the camera and serve as a caregiver to Steve, a man he grew to respect and love.

Steve invited Michael to experience his family's long goodbye and show others the devastating effects of ALS, a disease that leaves the individual and families with no hope of recovery.

"I think that it's the worst disease around," Steve's wife, Kathi, said. "It's worse than any cancer because there is no cure. He was very frustrated with that. There is no hope once you get this disease."


http://www.coloradoan.com:80/apps/pb...WS01/704150341