Ride For Life

One cold December afternoon in 2004, Scott and Tammy Brown’s daughter Lauren came home from school worried, confused and full of questions. “Some of our friends had found out, and their daughter is one of Lauren’s good friends. So, the little girl was on the bus and told Lauren, ‘Your mom is dying.’” Tammy, 34, says, nervously shifting in her wheelchair and glancing at her husband. “It wasn’t something we were prepared to tell yet. They (Lauren and son Logan) know, but it just happened.” Of course, Lauren, then 8, wanted answers that day and the Browns responded in turn – “Sissy, your mother has ALS and that is why she’s had trouble walking, it’s not anyone’s fault, everything is going to be all right.” But what Lauren didn’t ask (and what the Browns themselves had yet to realize) was how much the family would spend on Tammy’s medical care during the next two years. The cost of sick today, they would learn, is astronomical.more...