#ALSinCOVID

Celebrating May, 2022: Year Three of the Pandemic

For as long as I can remember, the fifth month of every year is celebrated as ALS Awareness and Families Appreciation Month in our community. And May is in a few days! The celebrations always start with the Governor issuing a proclamation to that effect and since the first proclamation, it had been always been held in the Governor’s Ceremony Room in the State Capitol surrounded by serious looking portraits of former governors hanging from dignified wall panels of koa…

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Richard Tran: Helping Build an ALS Residence for Hawaii, One Burger at a Time

My niece, Darlene, who is one-half of my so-called “IT Department,” invited a couple of her friends from Seattle to spend a week on Oahu. One of them was Richard who laughed his funny way into our hearts.  He ended up extending his stay into Christmas, to participate in our annual holiday shenanigans, usually orchestrated by the young people in my big Filipino family. In short, my family took to him as he fell in love with Oahu hard.  He…

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May 2021 as ALS Awareness Month

…THEREFORE I, DAVID Y. IGE, Governor of the State of Hawaii, do hereby proclaim May 2021 as “ALS AWARENESS MONTH” in Hawaii and encourage citizens of the Aloha State to join me in raising awareness of ALS, support the efforts to combat the disease, and honor the patients and families who are demonstrating extraordinary resilience and resourcefulness while living with ALS….

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MAY 2021 as ALS Awareness and Families Appreciation Month

We look back with fondness to the time when we were able to gather to celebrate May as OUR month. This coming May is the second during this time of Covid pandemic. Hawaii, like most states in the continental US is still under restrictions for public health security. Thus, our normally highly participated celebratory events are going to be just as quiet like last year’s. However, our efforts at bringing awareness to the community are no less robust and has…

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On Christmas Eve

One of the most difficult things to do is to gather one’s thoughts THIS close to THE most artificial deadline of all time! Before today, all important things such as the Christmas brunch and dinner menus and what games to play this year, shall have been discussed and laid out days ago, before the store runs out of honey-glazed ham and before all the pan de sal is sold out. Preferably after Thanksgiving dinner… or maybe during Thanksgiving dinner, while…

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Our Year Thus Far, and the Fate of our Annual Holiday Party

You may have heard: our annual Hawaii ALS Community Christmas (Holiday) Party is not happening this year. Our venue for the past two years, the Honolulu Central Seventh Day Adventist Church, is not open for a party or crowds more than the number allowed by the health authorities. As a testament to the careful vigilance of our families, our community has not reported any case of coronavirus (knock on wood) thus far, and we’d like to keep it that way.…

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August Babies: Katherine and Divina Request Donations for Birthdays

August 24, 2020, Kailua. – The pandemic has dramatically and irrevocably changed the landscape of life on earth. In the non-profit sector, fundraising is made more difficult by the combination of continuing need for public support and the restrictions on in-person contact. Consequently, non-profits switch to socially distant ways of requesting for needed support. We, at ALSFH, are still understanding the challenges of fundraising mainly by social media. Aside from being a non-techie three-member Board,  we also have no paid…

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“Lei of Remembrance” Memorial Ceremony, 2020 Edition

23 May, 2020, Kailua, HI. This year, the “Lei of Remembrance ceremony will be presented in video form. Every year for the past six years, the annual celebration – the ultimate culminating annual May event here in Hawaii – has been held in the courtyard of the State Capitol. In support of the State’s plan to stem the pandemic, the ceremony will be streamed for the first time on 29 May, Friday at 5-5:30pm. Streaming site will be announced midweek.…

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A FRONTLINE NURSE’S EXPERIENCE WITH DAD’S ALS

May 13, 2020, Kailua, HI.   Norgen Orpilla Dalit was an experienced nurse from the Philippines when she came to the US in 1991. Her older sister, also a nurse, had sent her to nursing school, for which Norgen has remained specially thankful. While in the Philippines, she worked in the OR and OB-GYN Labor and Delivery. Prior to finally settling in the US, she first detoured to Saudi Arabia, becoming part of the huge nursing force recruited from the…

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