Good to be Alive

My producer liked my Birdgirl stunt! Yay!

What a relief.

I was working on ideas for stories most of the day. I'll find out which ones will work, hopefully tomorrow.

Here's an excerpt of an email I wrote earlier:

I got into a car accident today. I stopped, but the guy behind me didn't and he hit me from behind. It wasn't very bad and we're both OK. My CRV looks a little scratched up, but his hood was completely bent. I was so busy at work, I didn't have time to think about it, but after we finished taping tonight, it came back to me. Being ill at the same time, driving home was a little hard. I'm just glad everyone is OK and that it was a decent-looking professor who hit me. I got his card, matched his ID and took pictures of both our cars.

Still a little shaken up. Looking forward to work tomorrow.

I'm interviewing a man whose two sons have a rare, degenerative disease called ALD (Adreno Leukodystrophy) or Lorenzo's. The parents spend every waking moment taking care of their children suffering from ALD. In due time, the children with ALD will become deaf, blind, paralyzed and then die. Somewhere in between all that, the parents have to work, stay strong, research about the disease, find sources of treatment and find money for that treatment. Treatment is very expensive and unavailable in many cases. A bone marrow transplant is a possible treatment for patients in the early stages and is not that difficult to receive once a matching donor is found, but all four ALD patients who received bone marrow transplants in Taiwan failed to recover and have died. This man I'm interviewing tomorrow, his two sons have ALD. The youngest son, who is only in kindergarten, is too far into the disease that he cannot receive a transplant. But the oldest son was a candidate, and the parents chose to have the surgery in Taiwan. They did this because the patient needs to be happy and receive a lot of encouragement before, during and long after the transplant to increase the chances of survival. If they went to the US like the previous ALD case who chose to do so because the success rate there is higher, then they wouldn't have the support of family, friends and classmates like they do in Taiwan.

I can only hope that I will never have to make a decision like this. Telling the story is enough.

It's good to be alive and to be healthy and to have healthy family.


Michella