ALS: Iowa National Guard Staff Sgt. Troy Musser

Living with ALS: Cedar Rapids veteran in the fight of his life
Ice Bucket Challenge, upcoming walk raise money, awareness of incurable disease
The Gazette
By Alison Gowans
Published: September 12 2014

Musser, 32, lives in Cedar Rapids and was diagnosed with ALS almost three years ago, shortly after returning for a tour of duty in Afghanistan. He says he’s thankful for the strangers who have contributed to the ice bucket challenge — the national ALS Association reports it has raised more than $100 million through the fundraiser.

As a member of the Iowa National Guard, Staff Sgt. Troy Musser earned the nickname, “The Machine,” after he broke multiple Guard physical fitness test records.

In two minutes, he could do 123 pushups or 95 situps.

Today he sits in a wheelchair, unable to move his legs and barely able to move his arms. Musser is living with ALS, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.

It’s a disease that’s risen in the public conscience of late, after a fundraising initiative for the ALS Association went viral. The ALS Ice Bucket Challenge filled social media with the clips and inspired millions of people to post videos of themselves dumping freezing water on their heads to raise money and awareness for ALS.

Even as the ice bucket challenge has spread awareness, there are thousands of people like Musser, fighting a terminal disease with no known cause and no known cure.

ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease after the baseball player who died from it in 1941, is a neurodegenerative disorder that affects nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord. It progressively robs people of their ability to walk, talk, swallow and breathe on their own. Eventually it leads to total paralysis and death.
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