Helping Kathie Woolsey live with ALS

Please help us support our dear friend Kathie Woolsey, who in the fall of 2022 was diagnosed with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, also known as Lou Gehrig’s Disease. ALS is a neurodegenerative disease that attacks the nervous system and affects one’s ability to walk, speak, swallow, write, and be independent with daily life skills. There is no cure, and the average life expectancy is less than 5 years.

Kathie moved back to Houghton, NY, in May 2022, after living close to her daughter’s family for the previous five years. Since her return to western New York, she has been enjoying retirement, reconnecting with treasured friends and family, learning to play the ukulele, knitting and slow stitching, making pottery, and enjoying the beautiful natural surroundings.

This diagnosis is particularly painful as it follows the decade-long decline and death in 2017 of her husband, Dan, from Frontotemporal Degeneration, and the sudden death of her youngest child, Molly, in 2016. Kathie’s mother had ALS and died when Kathie was 23, not long after her college graduation.

This Gofundme will help Kathie meet the following needs that are not covered by her medical insurance:

*Cost of Home Modifications:

Bathroom renovation for walker and wheelchair accessibility

Exterior ramp for home access; even in earlier stages of ALS, navigating stairs is difficult

*Cost of Mobility Aids:

Lightweight walker and motorized wheelchair

*Cost of other less predictable but significant expenses over the next 2 to 5 years, including professional in-home assistance.

Your donations will be vital in helping defray such expenses, helping alleviate some of the stress and practical burden of this diagnosis, and making Kathie’s remaining life better.

Kathie is grateful and humbled by the help and many acts of kindness she already receives from friends and family in her community. While we are heartbroken by this diagnosis and what it means for Kathie—as well as her two living children, Caitlin and Jesse, and four grandchildren—please know how thankful we are for any financial assistance received from you, our friends, and others, including those who perhaps don’t know Kathie directly.

Under the excellent and compassionate care of a neurologist at Dent Neurology in Buffalo—the same doctor who cared for Dan for 8 years—Kathie is receiving an experimental treatment aimed at slowing the progression of symptoms for patients with a mutation on the SOD1 gene (as Kathie has). If you would like to learn more about ALS, please go to www.als.org/understanding-als.

Thank you for supporting Kathie as she lives with ALS, striving for longevity and the best quality of life possible.