Boardman woman vows to fight her ALS till Clinton elected

YOUNGSTOWN

Christine Terlesky doesn’t know how much time she has left before she succumbs to the fatal symptoms of ALS, but she hopes she will live to see Hillary Clinton become president.

That’s what Terlesky, who lives in Boardman with her husband and three children, told the Democratic presidential candidate in a face-to-face visit with her during Clinton’s campaign stop in the Mahoning Valley last weekend.

A video posted by Clinton’s official Facebook page – and later shared on The Vindicator’s Facebook page – shows the meeting, in which Terlesky tells Clinton that she’s “going to keep fighting until I get to elect you as president.”

Clinton tells her, “Keep fighting, OK? I’m going to need you.”

Clinton then told Terlesky how as president she would invest more money into research for neurodegenerative diseases such as ALS, Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s, a message that she reiterated in the Facebook post.

Terlesky, who taught and coached at Boardman schools before her symptoms progressed, is living with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (also known as Lou Gehrig’s Disease), a progressive neurodegenerative disease that attacks the nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord. She was diagnosed in 2013.

ALS eventually causes its victims to lose the ability to walk, talk and breathe. There is no known cure.

For more on their meeting and Terlesky's life with ALS, read Friday's Vindicator or Vindy.com.