The Hippie Who Has Helped Thousands of Families with ALS
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Pictured- Ron Hoffman from Forward.
Ron Hoffman, 67, spent most of his life haunted by something from his childhood. When he was growing up in Richmond, VA, his father was an alcoholic and was abusive to his mother. One night, when Hoffman was 10, his father snapped and pointed a gun at his mother. Hoffman dove in front of her, and a bullet pierced his side and lodged at the base of his spine.
Hoffman calls it a "sacred bullet," because being shot led to a moment he considers life-changing. When he was lying on a gurney at the door to the hospital, an orderly met him and put a hand on his shoulder. "I just felt the warmth and love of his hand," Hoffman recalls. "And he just looked at me and said, 'Ronnie, I'm here.' It was a moment that I've never forgotten all my life. Someone was actually there for
me," he said.
Decades later, in the mid-1990s, Hoffman took a catering job on Cape Cod for a businessman named Gordon Heald. In the summer of 1997, Heald developed amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS or Lou Gehrig’s Disease), a degenerative neurological condition that causes muscles to waste away and can leave a person unable to move, talk, and eat, and eventually unable to breathe. In most people, the brain stays sharp.
Heald asked Hoffman to become his caregiver, and Hoffman turned out to be a compassionate caregiver and a friend to Heald. Heald died of ALS the next year and had donations in his memory sent to Hoffman for what ultimately became Compassionate Care ALS (CCALS).
How CCALS Helps People with ALS
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