Dear  dogbomb,

It comes to me that you as a regular Further Confusion attendee that you are a nice German sheperd fursuiter, and with your fun journals and pictures of you, you are one of a kind. Now to hear that you have Lou Gehrig's disease (ALS), the visits to FurCon will be numbered.

I like you just the way you are, and it is an uncomfortable situation that I'm in that it could be anyone who can get it-no matter how healthy you are. Yes, few years ago, there was the Ice Bucket Challenge in which many furs have participated in for awareness; well, now it has propagated exponentially, and it is sad to hear the fact that anyone with the disease will not live past 5 years according to www.alsa.org . I will hope and pray for lots of things to go right for you. I know that life is precious, and there is no escaping death-we will all pass away at some point in our lives, but we will never let any terminal illness that we have get in our way of enjoying life. Of course, a prominent example is the one scientist that passed away this week, Steven Hawking at 76- he amazingly lived this long after having diagnosed it in his 20's. It goes to show that the furry body has many ways of countering negative effects, and such things like Hawking's death at that age is considered miraculous.
I could understand that you would not want to live like him-Hawking is different- he has a huge passion in life for discovery and studies in the cosmos, and he will not let an illness get in his way of enjoying what he does. If really, the progression of ALS is so painful for you, it is understandable that you want to be in a better place. HOWEVER, don't give up what you like to do! If you love being a furry, keep going-fursuit as much as you want as everyone including me would like to see you perform as that dog with the lei and behaving as doggedly as he can inside and out of suit. There is a limit to it, but take advantage of the time you have in fursuiting-many followers and watchers here on FA and many other furry sites that you are on would like to see you as much as they can, including me.
You may not know me well until I got my fursuit, but I do know you by yours, and I would like to see your RL face and cherish it. It is a horrible disease like cancer and Alzhimer's, but though you now consider yourself as disabled (progressively), you do give hope to others that we should cherish our lives as much as possible. I do hope too that you can be an advocate for any kind of muscular dystrophy. Do not forget Jerry Lewis who died last year at 91-he was great in helping everyone with such illnesses and though there is no cure during his lifetime and as chairman of the Muscular Dystrophy Association while doing telethons before he stepped down few years ago ( www.mdausa.org ), he did not give up and we are close to finding a cure.

Stay positive, dogbomb. Let's hope for something great in the future, and I hope you live life to the fullest. I love you.

Yours Truly,
 Excelsior30