In the four years since former Cal Bear football captain Eric Stevens was diagnosed with ALS, a fatal, degenerative neuromuscular disease also known as Lou Gehrig’s Disease, he has lost a lot of th…
By Melissa Heckscher, Contributing writer
But he hasn’t lost his hope. After all, he can still walk unassisted inside his family’s San Pedro home. He can still eat normal foods. He can still read his daughter bedtime stories, sing her songs and cuddle her in bed.“Even though it seems like the end of the world, your perspective changes on what’s really important in life,” said Stevens, 33, who wasn’t feeling well enough to do an in-person interview but instead communicated via email. “Just being alive and being present is enough.
“Obviously a cure is what we’re all hoping for, but treatment is really all that Eric wants,” Amanda Stevens said. “That could help turn the disease from fatal to chronic, into just a condition that he needs to manage. That’s what we’re fighting for.” Amanda Stevens talks with a reporter about her husband Eric Stevens, and axeALS Foundation from their home in San Pedro on Monday, March 27, 2023. Eric Stevens is a PV Peninsula High graduate who is an ex-NFL player and firefighter diagnosed with ALS at the age of 29. The foundation in partnership with UC-Irvine establishes a program to give ALS patients who normally would not qualify for ALS trials a fighting chance.
Shortly after noticing the symptoms — and just months after his wedding to Amanda — he was diagnosed with ALS. “When you get a terminal illness like this, obviously a cure would be the best-case scenario,” Stevens told the, when his illness was only noticeable by a slight slur in his speech. “But what you really want is just a chance to fight it, a chance to live. Treatment is all we ask for.”
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