Chicago couple doing their best to stay strong as husband battles ALS

May is ALS Awareness Month, and a Chicago couple is tackling the devastating disease head-on.

Falling in love and getting married was easy for Cecil Puvathingal and Grace Christian

"I like to say that I knocked it out of the park on August 3rd of 2018. That's the night that I met this beautiful young lady," Puvathingal said.

"Within the first five minutes we met, I told him, 'Listen, I don't want to date for an infinite amount of time,'" Christian said. "'If you want the same thing, we can move forward. If not, I can go home right now,' and he said, 'You know, the food's really good here,' and next thing you know, it's history."

Building their family was not as easy as that first date, but after five rounds of IVF, Puvathingal, who works in the tech industry, and Christian, a nurse, finally got the news they'd been waiting for.

"We found out I was pregnant in March of last year," she said. "We were so happy, and then all of a sudden, he kept saying, 'Oh, I'm not feeling well. Something's going on.'"

Puvathingal started feeling numbness and tingling sensations.

"I could see him trying to open the window and struggling," Christian said.

Puvathingal was diagnosed with ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig's Disease, on July 9, 2025. Christian was four months pregnant, and their joy quickly turned into dread.

"It was like someone just punched the heck out of everything that we had planned," she said. "As a nurse, it's a curse. It's a curse, because I know where this is going to end, and, as mean as it sounds, I hope the Lord has mercy; either he gives a miracle, or he takes him before."

ALS is a fatal neuro-muscular disease. It affects nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord that control the ability to move, walk, and talk.

People with ALS eventually lose voluntary movement, the ability to chew and swallow, and even the ability to breathe on their own. There is no cure.

ALS patients also lose the ability to do simple tasks that we all take for granted. Puvathingal's caregiver has to help him with those every day.

Puvathingal and Christian's baby, Lizzy, is just six months old, and Christian feels like she's being torn in every direction.

"I play chess with my husband's life. I try to stay ahead of everything," she said. "Sometimes I feel like I'm not doing a good enough job for either of them, I'm not giving 100 percent."

But Puvathingal calls his wife "Amazing Grace," his saving grace. He believes that life is all about how you look at it.

"I don't think anyone would blame us for being upset, angry, frustrated. They wouldn't blame us for yelling at the world, but I just don't choose to look at life that way," he said. "I'm in a wheelchair, but I can still kiss my wife. I'm batting a thousand, because I have my wife by my side. I have our daughter that she's holding."

"I have my family and my friends that jump in every single day to help us," he added. "I still have a lot going for me. We still have a lot going for us."

Puvathingal and Christian said staying strong both emotionally and physically is all about attitude and gratitude.

"It's really interesting. A healthy person has a lot of problems that they're dealing with. An unhealthy person only has one," Puvathingal said.

After his ALS diagnosis, what came next was a wheelchair, a non-invasive ventilator, and mere memories of better times.

But on a recent Wednesday afternoon, he got a view of the world he thought he'd lost forever. With help from physical therapists at Shirley Ryan Ability Lab, Puvathingal stood up. It was just for a few minutes, but it put him over the moon.

"You can't tell, but I'm dancing now," he said. "It feels great. I feel ten feet tall."

Dr. John M. Coleman III at Northwestern Medicine knows Puvathingal is a big basketball fan, and the analogy isn't lost on him.

"Cecil is a dynamic guy. He came into this, and was like, 'I'm going to keep fighting. What tools can I get?'" he said. "My responsibility as his physician and his friend is to make sure that I'm thinking one step ahead so that he can keep playing the game as long as he can, and be successful; not just be part of the game, sitting on the bench, but actually in the game and living life."

But how do you stay in the game with a curve ball like ALS?

"This stuff that I'm going through, it ain't easy, I'll be very frank," Puvathingal said. "But every day you can wake up, and find a reason to be happy, find blessings in your life, and know that there's still a lot of good out there."

What helps Christian get through the day as Puvathingal battles ALS? Their baby daughter, and seeing him keep going.

"I think our biggest thing is faith, and our baby," she said. "We keep praying."

Puvathingal has kept a surprisingly optimistic outlook through it all.

"I just got this pesky little disease getting in the way of a couple of things, but not everything," Puvathingal said. "How's that for a sound bite?"

Puvathingal's condition recently has worsened, but as expected, he and his wife are still counting their blessings.