Well, for those of you who might not know me, my name is Kyle Ruppe. I’m 29 years old and live in Strathmore, AB, Canada. I enjoyed many sports and extreme sports, the main one being hockey. I was active all the time; I love adrenaline! Hockey was my life though. That very brief background about sports is to help you understand what is happening to me now. I’ve ran into some health issues that are preventing me from being that active person most of you know.
I have ALS. Otherwise known as Lou Gherig’s Disease. ALS is a progressive, fatal, neurodegenerative disease with most affected patients dying of respiratory compromise and pneumonia after 2 to 3 years; although some perish within a year from the onset of symptoms, and occasional individuals have a more indolent course and survive for many years. That’s the short of it.
Alot of people have been wondering what has been going on these past months. Here’s a quick summary.
So, here we go. I guess now that I look back on it, both of my pinky fingers started separating from the rest of my fingers about a year ago (2010). This means I would make a straight finger “salute” and I couldn’t keep my pinkies together with the others. It didn’t bother me, but now that I know what’s happening to me, I realize that’s probably my first symptoms. I knew something was wrong in June, ’11. I was noticing it was getting really hard to write and type normally. I had no extension power in my right hand! I went to the docs and he kept telling me I was fine. I was experiencing bad muscle twitching, extreme muscle weakness (reduced to little kid strength), and pretty bad muscle wasting (atrophy). My hand got worse and more and more useless. I can’t use it very well and I can’t straighten it at all. Almost all my fingers only half work and stay fairly curled. 3 months of getting worse and getting brushed off by the doc I finally got a nerve conductivity test done and that led to a larger amount of testing. The neurologists admitted me to emergency so they could test me and test me and test me. Long story short, they found nothing wrong in my spine after 9 MRI’s, then a spinal tap and CT scan showed nothing also. This started something bigger. They took my spinal fluid and 40 viles of blood and explained what they thought was wrong. They believed I had a Neuro-degenerative disease. There are a few they told me were possible and they were testing for. But we now know it’s the worst one.
It’s hard to describe what I’m going through, but I’ll mention a few things. Since then I’ve lost a ton of muscle in my upper body and my left hand is starting to do what the right one is. I’m having trouble doing a lot of ordinary, everyday things. It hasn’t affected my legs yet, but I’ve noticed twitching and weakness in my left leg. Oh well, I’m taking the right steps to stop the progression of it, I believe.
There’s a lot of unknowns about Neuro-degenerative diseases, but I’ve been following one man’s website who has survived 21 years with ALS. He changed his life to beat the odds and explains how it’ll help every Neuro-degenerative disease. Basically, he detoxes to remove as much of the toxins, metals, chemicals from his body as possible, then lives a lifestyle that keeps all of those things out of his body. So, what I’ve done is change my lifestyle to a purely organic (no chemicals at all) system so I don’t put anything I can’t accept into my body. None of the bad things can get back in me and I’m detoxing to get them out of me. Over a bit of time, why can’t it be that simple? I believe it is! Some people are proving it and I will too! This is the very basic version of what I’m doing but it gives an idea of what I need to do. It takes a hard discipline and tons of work to do it, but I’m capable and obviously willing! I believe that I was chosen for this because I’m strong and I always figure something out, so I can be that inspiration for others who will go through this. I want to give hope and belief to others just as Eric has done for me. www.ericiswinning.com
Just so you know, this lifestyle change makes me feel great! On top of what the disease is doing to me, I feel good with the new diet etc. Also, the amount of muscle twitching has gone down considerably from before! It used to keep me awake it was so bad! But little gains are important to me so I thought I’d share!
That’s basically what has been happening to me. If you have any questions, feel free to ask, I don’t mind. I’m confident I will come out on top!
I’ll high five everyone at our 80th birthdays!
- Kyle