In Memoriam: ALS Canada ambassador Chris McCauley
Social worker, policy research analyst and ALS patient
Months after celebrating his first wedding anniversary in 2014, Chris McCauley noticed some unusual twitching in his arms and legs while vacationing with his wife in Costa Rica. Shortly thereafter, he was diagnosed with ALS at the age of 52. “Instead of looking forward to establishing a home and thriving in career and community, we were doing our best not to deny the opposite reality,” he said.
After his diagnosis, Chris – a policy research analyst and social worker –became keenly interested in ALS research. Given the multiple causes, numerous disease pathways, and the different ways and rates at which ALS progresses and the variations in survival, he was struck by the immense challenges researchers face in developing a treatment or cure for the disease.
To Chris, the promise of Project MinE is tremendous as it will make ALS easier to study and has great potential to lead to effective treatments. He brought his voice to Project MinE in Canada to help make things better for people who will be diagnosed with ALS in the future. As he put it, “I think of others who will come after me and like me, lose the blossom of their health so insidiously. I want to do something to make it better.”
Chris served as ALS Canada’s ambassador for Project MinE until his death in August 2017. In his memory the international researchers connected to Project MinE are continuing their search for the causes of this brutal disease.