Former NFL football player Tim Shaw took the popular ALS Ice Bucket Challenge, and he used the opportunity Tuesday to
announce on the Tennessee Titans website that he was diagnosed with ALS in April.
In a Wednesday news conference, Shaw, who was cut by the Titans before the 2013 season, shared that he felt overwhelmed and “very loved” since the Tuesday announcement.
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"(It was) very difficult to go public, but it was made very clear to me that the time was right," he told gathered reporters. “I’ve waited for months and needed to process it on my own, and figure out what my message was going to be, because if I’d have just come out right away, I wouldn’t have known much about it. I wouldn’t have known what I really am going to stand for against this and in my life.”
Shaw said he hoped to bring attention to the ALS cause, joking that he usually likes attention for himself but not in this particular instance.
Answering a question about when he started having problems, he said late 2012 or early 2013.
“It showed itself in my muscles. You’d see my legs twitching, my muscles twitching, and it showed itself in weakness in my muscles, and it showed itself in loss of some athletic ability that I’ve always had,” he said.
He told reporters that it took doctors a considerable time to determine what was wrong, and that he got an official diagnosis at the end of April.
There is, he said, no “normal” progression for the disease. “The thing that I really want to focus on is there is going to be a way to cure this disease and we just don’t know what that is yet,” he said. “I believe we’re so close. I really do. This is a disease that’s lacked attention. It’s lacked funding.”
That, he said, is changing with the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge.
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