I am Christy Hansen
a family member of someone we've lost to ALS
Maryland
Driving around now as we enter into the fall season, my heart is torn out since this was one of our favorite seasons, and I’m seeing all the things we used to do, knowing that I won’t be able to do them with him.
It would have been our fifth anniversary this coming October 16, but the love of my life, my babe, Dave Parker succumbed to ALS on March 6 of this year.
I’m pissed, sad, angry, antsy, infuriated, disappointed, the list goes on, for the battle we had to fight together which felt mostly alone for all of these years.
My babe Dave was an amazing NASA engineer, who designed parts of the Hubble space telescope and has launched hardware to the international space station. He was the kindest man I ever met, and so kind and respectful to everybody around him.
Driving around now as we enter into the fall season, my heart is torn out since this was one of our favorite seasons, and I’m seeing all the things we used to do, knowing that I won’t be able to do them with him. I want to support and empower families with ALS, and share my lessons learned and our own personal designs to help us fight this battle every day, as well as to bring joy and improve quality of life.
I mostly felt alone during this journey, even though there were various organizations out there, I still felt like I had to do everything by myself, ask all the questions, come up with all the ideas, solve problems with medication, Invent fixes for broken hardware, deconflict inconsistent information from our doctors, manage Dave’s pain, figure out how to raise money for everything that was not covered, and do this while I was working full-time. I would love to help other families in my babes honor and empower them so they are not alone and they can still find joy. – Christy Hansen. The general population has no clue.
