Als

Brooke Eby shares her Lou Gehrig's disease, or ALS, diagnosis at age 33 and details her outlook on life after getting a terminal prognosis in her 30s.

When I was first diagnosed and still in shock, I joined a group of young women who were all diagnosed with ALS before age 35. People come up to me all the time and say, “I can’t believe you’re handling this so well. I think that when people hear of ALS, they still think of old men and not [vibrant young people](https://www.today.com/health/health/woman-shares-story-als-diagnosis-age-27-rcna9502). But somehow, by the end of the night, with the help of all my friends rallying around me, we had the bride doing the limbo under my walker and I was [TikTok account](https://www.tiktok.com/@limpbroozkit) to help explain to people what I was going through without making it a heavy conversation. [Ice Bucket Challenge](https://www.today.com/health/5-years-later-man-als-who-popularized-ice-bucket-challenge-t158256) — I think people paid a lot of attention to that, but I don’t think many people really learned about ALS from it. I went back to the doctor and, in March 2022, I was officially diagnosed with ALS. All I could think about was the image of me with my walker, surrounded by other 30-year-olds who needed no assistance to stand up, embarrassed by the hand I’d been dealt. Someone would ask me how I was doing in a grocery store and I’d just start crying. In 2020, one doctor suggested ALS as a potential cause for my symptoms, and I remember my entire family was furious at him. I decided it was time to see a doctor. Going into my fourth year of having symptoms in my left leg, I still wasn’t diagnosed.