Super Bowl dream comes true for local ALS patient
 

Super Bowl dream comes true for local ALS patient
by Joe Hickman, KY3 News

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OZARK, Mo. -- Thanks to his NFL-playing cousin, an Ozark resident who suffers from Lou Gehrig's disease is getting the opportunity of a lifetime.
"He's been battling with pneumonia so that's been our only concern," said Heather Cook.

Those words from Heather Cook about her husband, Alfonzo, sound a bit scary. But not even pneumonia will keep them from leaving the cold of Missouri for sunny Florida. That's where Cook's cousin, Tampa Bay safety Jermain Phillips, got them sideline passes for the Super Bowl.

Heather says there was really only one thing to consider.

"We had to make sure everything was wheelchair accessable."

That's because Alfonzo suffers from ALS, the fatal neuromuscular illness that claims 90 percent of its victims within 10 years. Cook, a former college football player at Mid-America Nazarene, was diagnosed two years ago.

He admits to his own emotional struggles.

"I just wonder why?" he said.

He says his biggest worries are about his children, son Kaiden and young daughter Reese, who was born after the onset of his illness.

"I've never held my daughter," he explans. "This is all she knows."

And that's why the Super Bowl trip is such a treasured moment for the Cooks..

"It's a once in a lifetime moment for anybody," Heather said. "But to be in the situation we're in, it's an unbelieveable thing and there really are no words to describe it."



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