There exists a manual entitled The Vain Girl’s Guide to ALS. It was written by Carla Zilbersmith, a comedian, actor and singer who was diagnosed in 2007. That year, she announced to an audience of people, “For those of you who don’t know, I was diagnosed with Lou Gehrig’s disease a couple of weeks ago…. I hate baseball. I’d really much rather have been diagnosed with a basketball disease. Maybe Wilt Chamberlain disease. That’s the one where you have sex 20,000 times and then you die.”

Carla is unfortunately no longer alive, but her manual lives on to encourage other women like myself not to become frumpy bag ladies just because our bodies are in early retirement. Read More>