Trying times
Borchard family is dealing with mother's ALS


BY MICK McCABE • FREE PRESS SPORTS WRITER • January 25, 2009


ALPENA -- With exactly 2 minutes left on the clock for the pregame warm-up, Lauren Borchard stops shooting and walks off the court and over to her mother.



"I love you, Mom," she says, giving her a kiss and a hug.

Right behind Lauren is Rod Borchard, her father and coach. He, too, bends down to give his wife a kiss and hug, and then he whispers, "I love you."

Lisa Borchard nods slightly and smiles, but says nothing.

When Alpena High's basketball game begins, Lisa intently watches, but says nothing. Her eyes brighten and her smile gets a bit broader when Lauren drills a three-point shot, but she doesn't applaud or cheer.

Even when an official makes a bad call, Lisa sits there with a smile, saying nothing.

The only words from Lisa these days come via a speaker from the computer connected to her motorized wheelchair. A piece on the bridge of her glasses controls a mouse and allows her to type and then play the words.

"I could not do this without many friends and family members," she says. "I'm so blessed and still praying for a miracle."

Blessed?

Lisa Borchard, 42, has amyotrophic lateral sclerosis -- ALS, more commonly known as Lou Gehrig's disease. She is bound to a wheelchair and hooked to a ventilator. She lost the ability to speak last summer.

This is not a basketball story along the lines of "Hoosiers," where the underdog plays the game of the century and pulls off the stunning upset.

No one upsets Lou Gehrig's disease.

This is a story about a basketball player struggling to complete her senior year on the court and in the classroom, hoping her mother will be around for graduation.

This is a story about a coach trying to lead his daughter through her last season while he's about to lose his team's biggest fan and the love of his life.

This is a story about a mother and wife giving the people of Alpena a lesson in grace.

But, mostly, this is a story about a family battling as best they can during the worst of times -- together. And that's the lesson for all of us.

A wonderful life
Lisa and Rod met at Webberville High. He was coaching softball and basketball. She played each sport.

An all-state first baseman as a junior, Lisa moved to catcher for her senior year, made third-team all-state and helped Donna Schultz set the state strikeout record.

That was the spring of 1985.

Lisa and Rod began dating a year after she graduated, and they were married in the fall of 1987.

The couple soon had two children -- Caleb, a sophomore at Alpena Community College who hopes to attend Lake Superior State in the fall to major in fire science, and Lauren, who has a 3.85 grade-point average and wants to become a teacher.

For years the Borchards were the typical happy family, but everything began to change in 2006. In January, Lisa found it odd that she struggled to open a bottle of water. In June, while helping a disabled girl play soccer in school, Lisa lifted the girl so that she could kick the ball, but inexplicably fell. There also were unexplained tingling feelings and a little numbness in some of her extremities.

That began the search for answers and the parade of doctors.

Supporting the kids
Lisa has left the Borchard home for only one reason since late September: an Alpena Wildcats home game.

Three people arrive about an hour before tip-off. They bundle up Lisa and bring the oxygen tanks. They carefully place her in the family van for the short drive to the high school.

Lisa's teeth chatter as she enters the school on a typically frigid Michigan winter evening.

Nearly everyone who sees her stops to offer words of encouragement as the wheelchair makes its way to the court.

"She always had the spring in her step and the sparkle in her eye every day when she came to work," said Alpena athletic director Tom Atkinson, for whom Lisa was an instructional assistant when he was the principal at Besser Elementary. "Her personality really transcended the position. She was beloved by everybody. Just a very special, special lady with class and serenity. She had a certain style all her own."

Her season highlight came in the Wildcats' home opener. It was Lisa's first venture outside the family's living room -- now the bedroom for Lisa and Rod -- and it was Lauren's 18th birthday. The guard celebrated by tying a school record with seven three-pointers.

"Her friends took her to the game and brought her back in and got her in the kitchen," Lauren said. "People were saying: 'Now, Lisa, are you comfortable?' 'Do you want this here?' She typed on her computer: 'It's not about me, it's about Lauren. It's her birthday.'

"She's always been that way. It's always about other people and how they feel. It's always about me and Caleb. She wants us to be happy."

The diagnosis
The day after celebrating her 40th birthday -- Aug. 4, 2006 -- Lisa saw doctors at the University of Michigan. She was told she likely had ALS, a motor neuron disease that destroys the cells that control muscle activities like walking, speaking, swallowing and, eventually, breathing.

"They did blood work for three months hoping it was something else," Rod said. "Everything was negative."

During Christmas break, they took a trip to the Mayo Clinic in search of better news. It only got worse. Lisa was told she had two to five years.

How was that possible, Lisa wondered? She still was the picture of health. She would get out her Denise Austin fitness video each morning and get in a good workout.

Slowly at times, quickly at others, the disease started to do its damage. Last January, three blood clots from Lisa's leg moved to a lung and she lost consciousness. "I thought I had lost her," Rod said. In August, a U-M pulmonologist said her lung capacity was dangerously low. In September, she underwent a tracheotomy in Petoskey and was placed on a ventilator.

That is when it became stunningly apparent to the children that there was little hope.

"We hadn't talked a lot about the finality of this disease," Rod said. "When Lisa was in Petoskey, Caleb commuted with me and he finally came out with some of the questions. 'Dad, are you going to sell the house?' 'What are we going to do?' I made it clear to him that nothing was going to change."

Nothing would change, except for everything.

Caleb, 19, elected to attend Alpena CC so he could remain at home and take an active role in Lisa's day-to-day care.

"He's my right hand," Rod said. "Thankfully, he's a homebody person. He's my main helper. It's a big growing-up process -- especially at his age -- doing what he has to do for his mother. You throw all pride aside and do what you have to do."

Lauren also helps when needed, but Rod has treated her differently than her brother.

"Lauren and I don't talk about it much because I want to keep her world as normal as possible," he said. "She's very involved with basketball. She's very involved with the child-care program here at the school, and she's wonderful. The kids love her. She's a soloist at the church."

For the longest time, Lauren tried to block out her mother's disease.

"At first, I thought it was kind of nothing -- her hand was cramped up," she said. "People kept saying don't read up on it, it's not something you want to know. The doctors told us they'd tell us what we needed to know, we didn't need to read up on it. My friends said they looked it up and said I didn't want to look it up. ...

"I can't imagine losing my mother."

Tough times
All Lauren wanted was a normal senior year. She wanted her biggest worry to be picking a prom dress.

She has reacted like the teenager she is, becoming withdrawn at times and shutting herself off from her friends.

"I know it's my problem, but I don't invite people over anymore," she said. "I used to have friends over all the time for sleepovers, card games. I hate to be selfish and say my social life is being distracted by it, but I never have people over. It's uncomfortable with bedpans here, suction machines there. It's uncomfortable, and I don't want to put people in that situation. ...

"I think the most difficult part is we have nurses coming into our house, we have people coming into our house. It's almost like an invasion of people all the time. We have ladies from the church who come in to clean the house, and they're great. ... The invasion of people is overwhelming."

On the court, that's where Lauren's life retains a sense of normalcy. She is the Wildcats' best player, averaging 12 points for a 4-5 team. In school, though, too often she looks around and wishes she could trade problems with her classmates for just a day.

"I don't talk to many of my friends about it, and that's frustrating," she said. "People don't know that my dad is caring for her 24/7. You almost want people to know: 'Hey, it's kind of hard.' "

Lauren does share her feelings with Julie Townsend, the other starting guard and a teammate since the third grade.

"She kind of puts a front up at school and around her friends, but she does break down quite often," Townsend said. "That's a problem, because she doesn't show it so she keeps it inside. It's such a terrible disease, she doesn't know how long or how much time she has. It's a lot of stress, but she handles it well."

Being a confidant puts Townsend in an awkward position. How do you deal with a best friend who is about to lose her mother?

"You hug her and listen to her cry and tell her that you're there for her," she said. "You can't tell her that it's going to turn out OK, because it's not. You've got to listen. It's sad."

Changing dynamics
Rod, 51, has been Lauren's coach since the third grade so they are closer than most teenage daughters and their fathers.

But he isn't Lisa.

"I'm really close to my dad with basketball, obviously, so I've always been a daddy's girl," she said. "But I don't go to my dad for advice -- nothing new. At home it was always me and her. Personal life, boyfriends, friends, it was all my mom. She will still ask occasionally. It's hard for me to talk to her, to say, 'Mom, come upstairs, there's something I want to ask you.' Now I have to sneak it in somehow."

At times it is difficult for Lauren to see her mother in the wheelchair with the ventilator, the oxygen tank and the feeding tube.

"Sometimes I get frustrated with her in this state," Lauren said. "Sometimes I don't even go in the room. Sometimes I just come home from practice and go upstairs, which I shouldn't. I feel bad for doing that, but sometimes I don't want to be around it, so I shut it out."

Lisa senses Lauren's frustration, and it troubles her. She doesn't want to spend what time she has left making her children miserable.

"I do not like that the kids have to do so much care," Lisa said.

While Lisa prays for a miracle, she realizes what lies ahead.

"I'm most disappointed that I won't see any weddings or babies," she said.

Rod wonders if he should have done more to make sure their lasting memories of Lisa aren't of her in a wheelchair.

"If you could prepare differently, you might have done some things that at the time you didn't think were that important like making videotapes," Rod said. "Like they say, with ALS, your best day is today. You don't have a better day coming than the one you've got right now."

And that is why 2 minutes before every home game, Lauren and Rod make their way to Lisa and leave her with a kiss and a hug.

"It's pretty much a lose-lose situation," Lauren said. "Who knows if she'll be at my next game?"

Contact MICK McCABE at 313-223-4744 or mmccabe@freepress.com.

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