ALS can’t stop Moline man's sense of humor
By Deirdre Cox Baker | Friday, May 09, 2008


Dave Emmert, who has ALS, enjoys spending time in his home art studio, which is also home to two parakeets, as well as collections of jazz music and Coca-Cola bottles.


David Emmert smiles, his eyes twinkling, and speaks a stream of words indecipherable to anyone except Judie, his wife of 47 years.

To Emmert’s ears, his speech is perfectly clear. The couple went many years before they grasped this cruel trick of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS, often called Lou Gehrig’s disease.

Emmert, 70, was diagnosed in 1996. His photo and a biographic profile will be featured Monday in an online series, “ALS: Anyone’s Life Story.” It is sponsored by the Muscular Dystrophy Association’s ALS division as part of ALS Awareness Month and can be viewed on the Web at als-mda.org. One person with ALS is being featured per day on the site during May.

ALS is a devastating disorder that destroys nerve cells that control voluntary muscles. Muscles grow progressively weaker until they are paralyzed, and death usually occurs in three to five years. It typically strikes adults in the prime of life, has no known cause and no cure.

David and Judie, 67, have lived in their comfortable home for 22 years, and their three children and six grandchildren all live in the area. The couple, two dogs, two parakeets and a 10-inch-long goldfish named Herman all add to a welcoming atmosphere at their Moline residence. The couple met in 1961 at a Presbyterian Church service. David was 21 and Judie was 18.

“She threw spitballs at me!” he said with a smile.

The Emmerts are active in area ALS and MDA support groups and feel the community aspect of their care is life-affirming. The fact that David has survived 12 years with ALS is a surprise, they agree. “I’m just too ornery,” he jokes, a sentence Judie quickly interprets for a visitor.

Slow-moving ALS

The form of ALS that David has evolves slowly, but it generally brings about death rather quickly, Judie said. Her husband was a landscape designer when he was diagnosed. He had worked as an art teacher in the Orion and Geneseo School districts during the 1960s and 1970s, was laid off and found a job as a salesman.

He founded a landscape business in the 1990s with his son. The strength and muscle problems began in 1994, but it was two years before the ALS diagnosis. “At first, I couldn’t lift the big bags of mulch,” he explained. The Emmerts went to several area doctors, and David had a tumor removed from his throat and then his teeth were pulled.

“There were still a lot of problems,” said Judy, who suffers from severe arthritis and debilitating health issues herself. She is retired after working 20 years at Trinity Medical Center-West Campus, Rock Island.

Finally, a different doctor told the couple he suspected ALS and referred them to The Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn.

“We spent two weeks up there,” David said, and the doctor’s suspicions were confirmed.

David’s ALS has gone through many stages since then. He eats pureed food, and he recently told his wife he is losing strength in his upper arms. He has trouble with drooling and also chokes a lot, his wife explained.

One of the worst aspects of David’s ALS has been the loss of their old friends. Judie explained that the communication problem is too hard for most people to cope with. “If I heard myself mumble all day, I’d go nuts,” David joked.

He has survived several surgeries since the diagnosis, including gall bladder and heart attacks. “We wondered how it would go with anesthesia, but he did fine in surgery,” Judie said.

The power of painting

A hobbyist who misses his days out in the garden, David now paints with oils and has filled the home with his works of art. He has sold or donated several, including to the MDA headquarters in Arizona.

The couple regularly attends both MDA and ALS support group meetings, where they find comfort in numbers. Another man with ALS has a speech pattern similar to David’s and they like to sit together and visit. “No one can really understand them, but they just talk away to each other,” Judie said.

“I really just go for the cake and cookies,” he added.

The support groups offer practical information for families, such as recipe suggestions for easily digested food items. “Just to know someone else is in the same situation helps,” she said.

David’s positive attitude has helped lengthen his life span, she believes. He picked up oil painting after many years. A friend actually marched out and brought him paints and canvas, telling him he was not going to just sit around with the debilitating disease.

He loves having company and especially likes to hear people talk. “That’s the schoolteacher in me,” he jokes.

Tries to walk

David goes to bed late and gets up even later. It takes 60-90 minutes to navigate his way from a specially outfitted bedroom to the kitchen for breakfast/brunch, and he tries as much as possible to walk around the accessible house.

His painting room is a former bedroom, filled with art materials and a collection of gnomes. “I had to get the kids married off so I’d have room for my stuff,” he said with a laugh.

The parakeets are in the room, and David likes to talk to them, too. “They chirp right back at him,” Judie said. “They get feathers in my paint if they get too excited,” he added.

Organizations such as the MDA have helped. There’s an electric scooter, a wheelchair and an $8,000 “talking machine,” which is expected to be especially useful when David’s speech worsens.

Ever the jokester, he kids Judie about the both of them being in poor health. “We’re the blind leading the blind,” he said, and then grew quiet. “I do think sometimes about … disappearing.”

Deirdre Cox Baker can be contacted at (563) 383-2492 or dbaker@qctimes.com. Comment on this story at qctimes.com.

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