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."