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The internet has recently been swept up by the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge. Is there a cause — social, political, cultural, or other — you passionately believe in? Tell us how you got involved — or why you don’t get involved.

I have two causes which I believe in and try to spread to others through my actions and words.

My first cause of course is God. I have drifted in and out of God’ s view different times in my life. I was baptized when I was ten years old at church camp. From there I just faded in like clouds according to how my life was going. There were plenty of times that I thought I didn’t need God. Other times I wanted proof he existed. After all, we are a world who needs proof.

In a way that is hysterical as an excuse. There are people out there who don’t have proof until they find themselves laying in a dark and gloomy box after trying drugs. There are females that think they know they can have sex without becoming pregnant, and then losing the baby to another home or maybe worse, then discover their full-proof theory didn’t work.

I finally got it through my thick-skin head that I needed God. I could and can do nothing without his guidance and help. I learned that I am to witness to others, so this is my most important cause in life.

My second cause is to spread the word about a very rare illness called MSA, which stands for Multiple System Atrophy. This is a terminal illness with no known cure as of yet. It is so rare that getting donations is very difficult to do.

We need donations so a cure can be found. We need caregivers, families, and doctors to spread the word. We need more information on our Google and other search engines for people to read about.

MSA is an illness that for most, cut the ties that allow your body to move. My brother had this for seven, long years. It left him crippled, bed bound, not able to speak, swallow, eat, focus, contain bodily fluids. He lost his communication skills and he lost his ability to remain a man.

He laid in bed, bound inside the rails for six months, with me completing all tasks for him. He lost his pride also. The worst part of MSA in my opinion was not what he lost; but what he kept.

He still had his memories. MSA does not usually affect the memories. This caused great embarrassment to Al, my brother. He knew that at one time he had worked, driven, made decisions, went to the bathroom on his own, bathed himself, fed himself, cashed his paychecks, went to church, decided if he wanted to sleep in or not.

He could choose his own clothes to wear, decided what day he would go to the grocery store, pick out his own foods, tie his shoes. Folks, the list could go on and on. This illness strips everything and it did for Al. When he died he had went from 295 pounds to 130 pounds. When I looked into his casket, I couldn’t recognize Al, I could only reflect on my memories of him from earlier times.

If you want to help a cause and you can’t decide which one to help, please consider helping MSA. I am not saying Feed the Children is not a good program, or that Cancer research is not worthy of your monies; but MSA– has little funding coming in.

No funding means no research. No research means no cure. No cure means every week when I look at my Facebook MSA pages, another soul has earned his wings, as Bonnie Llewellyn, always says.

Go to the link below I will provide you with. Make a donation. Make it a dollar, five dollars, ten or twenty. Hell, make it one hundred. The point is; just make it. The life you save may be your own or someone you know as a family or friend. After all, my friends, MSA is most commonly misdiagnosed for the first few years as Parkinson’s Disease, and I am pretty sure we are all familiar with those words.

http://www.curesma.org/