ALS Saved My Life until it didn’t

Only one month after finishing her naturopathic medical residency, and with a husband and a 15-month-old son, Dr. Jenni Kleinman Berebitsky’98 found out she had ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease. Doctors gave her between 18 months to two years to live. That was more than 10 years ago, and with that gift of time, rather than retreat into her illness, she decided to help the rest of us learn how to live.

In addition to being the subject of a documentary, competing in a triathlon with the help of her husband, Jeff, and friends, and becoming a bit of a celebrity in her home city of Indianapolis, Ind., Berebitsky was determined to write this memoir to help others understand what life is like with ALS.

Filled with humor and wisdom, it is also a pragmatic guide for anyone navigating life-altering events. Even the back story of how she wrote it—with the assistance of a journalist and her mother over years of collaboration using technology to project text onto a screen—is a testament to her determination. “For a story of terminal illness, this book is overflowing with joy, optimism, good humor, and the love of life,” writes the author Ben H. Winters.