![](https://www.iamals.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/b6927d182ed2-IMG_9300-2000x1500.jpeg)
I am Jonathan Pickens
someone who cared for a person we've lost to ALS
California
I AM ALS is not a phrase I’m proud of, but I can be proud of the work I do to help cross out those last three letters of that phrase.
I am an asymptomatic SOD1 carrier. I’m 34 years old and involved in a pre-symptomatic biomarker study being done in Miami. I’m a former caregiver for my dad who passed away from the disease in 2015. He was diagnosed in 1994 when I was eight years old. His dad, brother, aunts and others before him also suffered. “I am ALS” is not a phrase I’m proud of, but I can be proud of the work I do to help cross out those last three letters of that phrase.