‘It’s not going away’: Edinburg man struggles with Lou Gehrig’s disease
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December 9, 2008 - 11:55 PM
Jared Taylor

Martin Silva looks through a bag of medications as his wife Ana helps him Dec. 3 in their Edinburg home. Silva has ALS, or Lou Gehrig’s disease, and the family is having trouble paying for his medical care.



Martin Silva was enjoying a beer at his home when he noticed something wasn't right.

Recently retired after spending 30 years working as a carpenter for Hidalgo County, he had survived two heart attacks and supported his wife, disabled daughter and her child off his modest pension.

He stood up after having just one beer and realized something was wrong.

"My orientation was like I was already drunk," he said.

Martin soon found out that he has amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, commonly known as Lou Gehrig's disease.

There is no cure.

The diagnosis came six years ago and Martin has lived four years longer than his doctor expected him to at the time.

But he checked into the hospital Thursday, barely able to breathe.

He has stayed there since, suffering from panic attacks and barely able to eat or breathe while he waits to find out what the doctors will do.

They are set to decide today whether he will go into surgery and have a hole cut below his throat that would allow him
to breathe.

If that happens, Martin would likely lose his voice, he said. His tired, yet defiant words would be replaced with the monotone of an artificial voice box.

The Silvas, their daughter, Luisa, and granddaughter, Ashley, are the first family featured in this year's "12 Days of Christmas." The series, sponsored by the United Way and The Monitor, highlights local families in need and asks Rio Grande Valley residents to help make their holidays a little brighter.

The crippling costs from Martin's degenerative disease have put the family behind more than $2,500 on their property taxes.

Ana, his wife, is diabetic and has a thyroid condition that affects her metabolism. She also has a hernia that requires a surgery her family cannot afford.

"With his pension, I was told he makes too much to get Medicaid," Ana said of the government insurance program for low-income families. "(Collectors) keep calling us and calling us. What can we do? We can't pay them."

The Silva family receives $2,000 a month from Martin's Social Security and retirement benefits, but there's not much left after a $600 supplemental health insurance bill and $400 worth of prescription medicine each month.

One of the Silvas' daughters, Luisa, 30, was left with brain damage after she was walking down the street and was struck by a hit-and-run driver in 1991. The driver was never found, Ana said.

Luisa spent about four months in the hospital, but the damage kept her from mentally developing beyond the mind of a teenage girl.
She ran off with a man and had a baby with him, but when the daughter was born, Ana was named legal guardian. Today, 15-year-old Ashley stays with the Silvas as well.

Martin's diagnosis, in what should have been his golden years, capped a life that has already been hard.

ALS is a progressive disease that attacks the body's motor neurons that extend between the brain and spinal cord. Motor neurons convey the messages that the brain sends to tell our body's muscles what to do.

When a person develops ALS, those neurons degenerate and the brain's ability to control movement deteriorates.

About 5,600 Americans are diagnosed each year and there are about 30,000 people with ALS at any given time, according to the ALS Association.

About 80 percent of people with ALS die within five years of diagnosis.

That was the reality Martin faced. Doctors said he had less than two years to live.

The news crushed him, at first.

He knew what ALS was. He had already watched the destructive disease — only 10 percent of people can trace the disease to their genetics — take the lives of his father and brother before they turned 50.

He was despondent for a time, then decided the disease wasn't going to take him, too.

Not without a fight, at least.

Ana, 60, regularly feeds Martin, dresses him and helps him go to the bathroom.

"Sometimes, I even cry with him because I can't help him up," she said.

After his diagnosis, Martin went to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs hospital in San Antonio and volunteered for experimental research therapy. After the doctors there performed their tests on him, they gave him up to five years to live.

"Hey, at least you gave me two to five," Martin recalls telling one doctor. "In the Valley, they gave me two."

Martin began physical and speech therapy at his home. He makes regular trips to San Antonio every few weeks to meet with his doctors but has to take a rental car because the family vehicle needs repairs.

He has already beaten the odds, passing his sixth anniversary with ALS in October.

Still, his health has slowly deteriorated.

His biggest daily challenge is making it into the family home's cramped bathroom and shower, which is not wheelchair-accessible.

He has taken three serious falls in recent weeks. If he could get any help, it would be to fix his bathroom, Martin said.

Several times each week, he meets with therapists who help him try to save his voice and physical movement. He has spent much of his time bedridden, either watching television or sleeping from the exhaustion the ALS has caused while taking its toll on his body.

"This is a big, monster disease," Martin said. "It affects you everywhere. Your legs. Your arms. Your throat. Everywhere."

Although Martin can still stand with help from Ana, he has a power wheelchair on loan from the VA hospital that has allowed him to move about parts of his house and the neighborhood.

His favorite activity is to cruise in the wheelchair to a nearby Whataburger around the corner to buy a biscuit and cup of coffee most mornings.

He said one of his greatest hopes is that other ALS patients in the Valley will come together and meet to support each other. Martin says he is one of the few survivors from a former support group, but he knows there must be more people with ALS in the area.

"It's already here," he said of the disease, "and it's not going away."

Jared Taylor covers law enforcement and general assignments for The Monitor. You can reach him at (956) 683-4439.

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