'Life can't stop'


Katie Dolac
Staff Writer
Sunday, September 16, 2007




Lee Linthicum, a Culpeper man with Lou Gehrig's disease, shows off a Washington Redskins hat autographed by Coach Joe Gibbs. (Staff Photo, Katie Dolac)



When Lee Linthicum moved into his dream home eight years ago, he envisioned a long, happy retirement fishing in the pond out front.

Now, at 46, Linthicum is homebound. He doesn’t expect to live to see retirement, and he’s lost his ability to even take a fish off its hook.

Linthicum has a progressive neurodegenerative disease called amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). It’s more commonly known as Lou Gehrig’s disease, for the legendary baseball player who died of its effects in 1941.

ALS steadily deteriorates brain and spinal cord nerve cells that control all voluntary muscle movement. It eventually debilitates a person’s motor skills and ability to chew, swallow and breathe.

***

Lee had just graduated from Fauquier High School in 1979 -the same year the Pittsburgh Pirates defeated the Baltimore Orioles in the World Series, Saddam Hussein was elected president of Iraq and a major nuclear accident occurred on Three Mile Island outside Harrisburg, Pa.

He immediately jumped into his 28-year career as a draftsman, drawing detailed mechanical maps for a structural steel fabricator. He worked on high-pressure projects for the Library of Congress, the Kennedy Center, the Pentagon and the Supreme Court, which made him a “bundle of nerves.”

Lee met his wife Vicki at a Fauquier hangout called Hugo’s in 1981. He’d had a serious girlfriend during high school, but said he knew immediately Vicki was the one.

She was a high school senior with a beautiful heart and a good head on her shoulders. They went to her senior prom and married in 1984. Three years later they had daughter Erica, now 20, and in another three, son Chad, now 17.

Vicki stayed home during the children’s early years, prompting the young working-class couple to move to Culpeper. That was 1989, when living was more affordable. Ten years later, they bought their country dream home.

The house, hidden from Scotts Mill Road by thick trees, sits atop a rocky hill overlooking a freshwater pond in western Culpeper County.

It was the perfect place for the homegrown Fauquier County boy to raise a family and retire. Even Chad, who was 9 at the time, said he could see himself raising his children there.

Lee still has a framed picture of himself, standing atop a ladder, buried in tree limbs, tying off rope for a tire swing, while young Chad sits restlessly at its base.

The tire swing still hangs by the pond.

Sometimes, Lee looks at the picture when he’s alone during the day. He couldn’t imagine doing that now.

***

Two years ago, Lee noticed strange muscle spasms in his right arm - much like those annoying twitches you sometimes get in an eyelid.

Lee would shake and rub out his arm, but the spasms didn’t stop. They spread. He began tripping over throw rugs and walking with a noticeable limp. His perfect penmanship grew sloppier, and his detailed maps suffered.

Doctors put Lee through a series of tests, and presented ALS in a long list of other possible ailments to rule out.

With test upon test, there seemed to be no end or answer.

Finally, Lee had enough. When the doctor suggested yet another exam to rule out one last illness last September, Lee said he laid out his cards.

“I could see it,” Lee said, gesturing as if to suggest he could read the doctor’s face.

He recounted the story seated in a motorized wheelchair in the kitchen of his Culpeper home. He wore a grayish T-shirt depicting a glass of water. Underneath was his favorite phrase: “Half Full.”

“Come on, Doc. I think it’s ALS,” he said.

“Since you put your cards down, so do I,” the doctor said, confirming Lee’s suspicion and issuing his official diagnosis.

The doctor laid it all out. He spent hours explaining the disease, how it hits everyone differently, but typically starts at the legs and creeps its way up the body, slowly debilitating a person until it affects speech, chewing and swallowing ability and even breathing.

He explained how there was no known cure, and he prepared Lee and Vicki for certain challenges they should expect: voice boxes, feeding tubes, oxygen machines, wheelchairs … death.

They walked into the parking lot feeling like they’d been slammed with a Mack truck.

Their world stopped, but the one outside was spinning around them. The sun was still shining brightly, cars zoomed along in traffic as usual and people seemed to stroll on sidewalks without a care.

“You just wanna scream, ‘Do you know what’s just happened to me?’” Vicki said.

***

Vicki calls herself the realist of the family. When her husband is in the clouds with his cup half full, she’s there to remind him of the empty part.

She couldn’t help but see all the bad news and hurdles at once.

Her husband would have to fight a disease he couldn’t defeat.

ALS is not like cancer. With cancer there’s hope of survival, there’s radiation and chemotherapy. Sometimes with cancer the patient wins, but ALS always wins. There’s no such thing as an ALS survivor. In three to five years, she could be a widow.

In the meantime, the family breadwinner would be out of a job, and eventually she would have to quit hers to care for him.

They would need all kinds of expensive equipment - a handicapped-accessible van, wheelchairs and ramps. She foresaw all kinds of costly home renovations, like the upcoming bathroom fixes Lee needs for accessibility purposes.

“In the beginning,” she said, “it was very overwhelming.”
Vicki went to work crying every day.

In June, her co-workers at Sycamore Park Elementary, where she is an intervention specialist in the STRIDES program, pooled together and surprised the couple with dinner, a hotel room and tickets to see Lee’s all-time favorite: iconic southern rock band Lynyrd Skynyrd.

“That was back when I was walking with no cane,” Lee said.
In the hotel elevator they met Johnny Van Zant, the band’s lead vocalist. He took over vocals several years after his brother, band founder Ronnie Van Zant, died in a 1977 plane crash.

“His music has carried me through a lot,” Lee said.

“Transcending. His music has buried itself in me.”

At the concert, Lee’s daughter Erica rested her head on his shoulder when the group broke into “Free Bird.”

“I love you, Dad,” she said.

His heart melted.

The family outing was just what Vicki needed to push herself into the acceptance phase.

“Life can’t stop,” Lee said.

Katie Dolac can be reached at 825-0771 ext. 138 or starexponent.com.

Longtime Culpeper resident Lee Linthicum was diagnosed with Lou Gehrig’s disease last September. Since then, he has gone from walking normally to getting around on a motorized wheelchair. This is the first in a three-part series.

Today: Lee Linthicum’s ALS diagnosis brings his life to a screeching halt.

Monday: Linthicum and his wife struggle and cope through the disease’s progression.

Tuesday: Linthicum learns the key to life is staying positive.

Want to help?
What’s Up: Area bands unite for Rock Fest 2007, Culpeper’s first outdoor rock festival to benefit Lee Linthicum, a 46-year-old Culpeper man with ALS.

When: Saturday, Sept. 22, 1 to 9 p.m.

Where: Culpeper Agricultural Enterprises, 10220 James Monroe Hwy. (Two miles south of Culpeper on U.S. 29.)

Tickets: $10 in advance, $12 at the door; Kids 10 and under $5

The lineup: Rude Rock Family, Rude Buddha, NUMA, Eclypsio, Revenent, Lucky So Far, The Conflicted, Mandorla, Rath, The Pink Mob, Identity, In Vein, Secret Ninja Death Squad, Colin Healy and the Jetskis, Krush and Not Guilty.

Volunteers needed: Call Jackie at 727-1199, Vicki at 937-5246 or Ray at 222-0664.
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