Support William McElwee's Battle with ALS

We are setting up this account on behalf of our father, William "Bill” McElwee, who has recently been diagnosed with " Lou Gehrig's disease, better known as (ALS) Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. ALS is a fatal neurodegenerative disease that causes progressive death of motor neurons in the spinal cord and cortex. ALS causes nerve cell break down which reduces functioning and wasting of the muscles throughout the body.

This rare disease is difficult to diagnose and unfortunately it took about a year and several different doctors before he was finally diagnosed. By this time, he had already lost over 30 pounds, his voice, speech and swallowing became impaired, and he has lost some dexterity with his fingers. As of now, his body is buring calories 3 times faster than normal and has great difficulty with swallowing, eating. On his July 1 appointment with his team in Hershey, after much encouragment, he agreed to have a feeding tube placed in hopes of giving him the calories and nutrition he needs to help prevent him from losing more weight and trying to help his quality of life. We are in the process of setting up and applying for in home services so that he can have caregivers and nurses to help him with his needs and help care for his feeding tube.

The donations would be used soley to help with expenses related to his quality of life, such as modifications needed to help with his activities of daily living, speech devices, nutrition, adaptive equipment, transportation to and from appointments and final expenses.

Thank you in advance for your time, consideration and support.