Hi everybody! My name is Mike Craig Gradwell and I'm an actor, dancer, self-defence coach, teacher, poet, boxer, impro & theatre professor and bicycle addict.
I also have Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (a-my-o-TROE-fik LAT-ur-ul skluh-ROE-sis), or ALS, a progressive nervous system disease that affects nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord, causing loss of muscle control.
ALS is often called Lou Gehrig's disease, after the baseball player who was diagnosed with it. In France it’s known as Charcot’s disease, after the famous neurologist Jean-Martin Charcot.
Doctors usually don't know why ALS occurs and it may affect anyone at any age.
Charlie Mingus, Luc Cousineau, Leadbelly, rap producer Pone of the Fonky Family, Frank Alamo, David Niven, Frederick Weibgen, Jason Becker, Jörg Immendorff, Mariano Álvarez Fernández, Dan Toler of the Allman Brothers, Stephen Hillenburg, Mike Porcaro, Sam Shepard, Adel Hakim, Kim Shattuck, Pave Maijanen, Marcelle Delpastre, Florence Bouhier, Anne Bert, Bernard Lenteric, Frédéric Badré, Daniel Arasse, Matthieu Galey, Tony Judt, Ariel Crozon, Marie Sey, Stephen Hawking, Fokko du Cloux, Roy Walford, Mao Zedong, Yasuhiko Funago, Lou Gehrig, Claude Bissot, Jimmy Johnstone, Tony Proudfoot, Stefano Borgonovo, Fernando Ricksen, Jonathan "Blazeman" Blais, Joost van der Westhuizen, Jérôme Golmard, Brad Drewett, Frédéric Dahmani, Papa Bouba Diop… are just a few known figures with ALS, with many more « hidden figures » still carrying or having fought it.
In August 2014, a challenge went viral online, commonly known as the "ALS Ice Bucket Challenge", check it out on your favorite platforms, you’ll be amazed who’s gone for it.
All these public actions and figures have helped raise awareness and funds for the medical research over the years and some diagnostics progresses and genetic discoveries are encouraging, as well as some therapeutics, but there’s still a long road ahead to win this scientific and societal challenge.
