After a couple of years of bliss the worst thing we could imagine happened. One night as we prepared for bed, he layed down and immediately jumped up and said, "I can't breath when I lay down". No matter what we tried, every time he layed flat his breathing would just stop! This was one of the most frightening nights of my life.

Our first thoughts were lung cancer or something like that. My husband has always been a very social person so he loves to entertain. He smokes and drinks so we assumed that he was starting to suffer some serious consequences to his years of abusing his body with things that we all know aren't good for you.

After a long and sleepless night of trying to sleep sitting upright in a chair, we made and appointment to see our family doctor the next day. We thought for sure he would be able to tell us what the problem was and give him something that would help him lay down and be able to breath so he could sleep.

My husband owned a small consulting company and was forced to make a business trip the day after the doctor's appointment. When he was checking into the hotel the night before his business meetings started, he got a frantic call from the doctor's nurse. She said the doctor had the results of his tests and that the doctor wanted to see him right away. My husband basically went into a panick with this call. He explained to the nurse that he was out of town and that he could not return for several days and convinced her to let him talk to the doctor on the phone rather than wait several days and worry about this while trying to conduct business. The doctor explained to my husband that the xrays indicated his lungs were both about half collapsed and this was surely the reason he couldn't breath when he layed down. The dotor told him that he would need to see a respiratory specialist to find out why.

Even given the obvious seriousness of this problem it was almost two weeks before we could get an appointment with one of the more respected respiratory specialists, For the next few weeks he continued sleeping in an upright position in order to gleen some sleep and this only seemed to work when he became so exhausted he just couldn't stay awake any longer.

When my husband's appointment day with the respiratory specialist finally came, we were of course very nervous. The doctor examined his xrays, gave him a test that measures a person's lung capacity, did a little poking and prodding and then announced that my husband was afflcted with ALS. He explained that ALS causes a loss of muscle control and and that in some severe cases the muscles affected could be partially if not completely paralyzed. The doctor told us that my husband's diaphram was paralyzed and his ability to breath at all was through the use of his chest muscles. His diagnosis was such that we were pretty convinced that he would most surely die from this condition since the diaphram is one of those muscles you can't really live without. His only recommendation was that we seek the advise of a neurologist for treatments of this disease.

We asked what could be done about a paralyzed diaphram. Couldn't he use a respirator or some type of device that would help him breath. The doctor explained to us that the diaphram moves your stomach out of the way so your lungs can expand when you breath. He further said that a respirator can put air into your lungs but can't necessarily move your stomach out of the way allowing the lungs to expand and fill. We asked him how he could be so sure since his examination seemed to be so simple and short. He further explained that one of the first indications of ALS is a loss of muscle control and he had noticed a tremor in my husband's hands and neck during his exam, true indicators of ALS muscle control loss.

Taking the respiratory specialist's advice we made an appointment to see a neurologist as quickly as possible. It was another several weeks of course before we were able to secure an appointment with one. All the while of course, hubby was still trying to get sleep while in a sitting position. He had also found that any type of physical activity caused him a serious shortness of breath so badly that just something as simple as walking from the car into the grocery store would mean he had to sit and catch his breath before continueing. At this point, both having no reason to think otherwise, we were bracing ourselves for the worst.

Then it gets worse. We finally get the appointment with the neurologist. My husband was examined by the doctor from head to toe. He did all of the basic things a neurologist does, follow my finger, walk a straight line, questioned my husband about the tremors he had etc. Finally he tells us, "you don't have ALS".

The neurologist told us that after reviewing my husband's medical records that showed visits to other doctors over the years about his nervous shake, that his tremor was nothing more than a fairly common nervous disorder called an "essential benign tremor". He went on to explain this was a non life threatening nervous disorder that could be controlled with medications. This made perfect sense to us since my husband explained that he had this nervous shake since he was a teen and over the years he had found ways to deal with it. That explained the tremor, but what about my husband's innability to breath? The neurologist said that my husband's diaphram was in fact paralyzed and that we needed to schedule an encephlomiogardiogram test to determine the extent of the paralysis.

My husband had this test done and he described it to me like this; he said the neurologist attached several dozen electrodes to his body and gave him a barrage of small yet very painful shocks that went over his entire body in a random order. This was apparently to check how well his nervous system carried signals to the various muscles of the body. The shocks themselves he described as sort of like holding on to a car's spark plug when it goes off, only this test was like having that spark plug touching all over his body when it went off and several hundred times in a few minutes. After this test was done is the only time in all the years I've know my husband where he cried from any sort of pain.

After the tesing was completed we were talking with the doctor waiting for the results of the test. My husband happened to mention that a few days before this problem began he had fallen through a deck that was under construction at a friends house. He told us that the deck was about 10 feet off the ground so in order to keep from falling on his head he grabbed both decking supports on either side of him as he fell to stop his fall.

At last! the doctor explained, this is the cause of your breathing problem. The sudden jerk to his body had caused the frenic nerves that feed signals to his diaphram to be strectched and possibly pinched. He explained that the test indicated the signals to the diaphram were getting through but that they were so weak his daphram was not responding to them normally.

Now to make this long story a bit shorter: 36 months later his diaphram is now working again, his lungs have thankfully re-inflated, and he is now working on losing some 30 plus pounds he gained from not being able to do anything but sit. The moral of this story should be pretty clear. Get a second opinion.

Sadly over the almost four years it took for his frenic nerve to repair itself my husband's business failed because he couldn't work. We started a couple of online stores in hopes of replacing the lost income. Even though niether of us are even close to being computer experts, we have managed to get them up and working. All we need now is the knowledge to figure out how to get people to find the stores and hopefully buy some of our products. We are always willing to take advise or recommendations if anyone knows how to help us make it work.

TRUE STORY