Stop Requested: A Collection of ALS Poetry opens a window into the lives of 20 patients diagnosed with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) and their providers; detailing intimate accounts of confusion, suffering, fight, hope, and change that ALS patients experience during their disease progression.

ALS is a ruthless, unforgiving disease; it’s a diagnosis no one ever expects to hear, a journey no one ever expects to travel. This collection of poetry aims to give you a variety of perspectives of patients on that journey; to put you on that same bus that these passengers are forced to ride. A bus that you can’t get off.

Each stop on this bus is personal to each passenger, each poem is inspired by one of their stories. Between stops, clinician perspectives serve as “interludes," guiding you along this journey with their expertise and knowledge about ALS and sharing their personal experiences. This collection serves as a narrative for a population of patients, students, and communities to better understand how ALS completely reorders someone’s life.

The sadness that many patients experience is expressed throughout many of these poems. Sadness may be a theme, but it is not the whole story...