1. By Brian Estadt
Editor
They simply weren’t working. No matter how he arranged the pads
in his shoe, Andy Nodaros couldn’t shake the limp that had crept into
his right leg. And he was certain it was ruining his family’s vacation.
The week in Myrtle Beach was supposed to be the perfect getaway.
He and his wife, Carol, could eat maybe a little too much and do some
shopping. Their two adult children and their spouses could enjoy a few
rare days of leisure. And the five grandchildren could splash around in
the ocean to their hearts’ content.
But Andy felt like a burden to his family. Just as his right foot had
become an anchor that slowed his body and threw it off balance, he felt
like a dead weight that dragged the whole family down.
He couldn’t play miniature golf. He couldn’t take a sunrise stroll
along the ocean. He couldn’t share in the wonder of his grandchildren.
And if there was one joy Andy didn’t want to miss, it was seeing the
grandchildren experience the boardwalk for the first time.
“I’ve seen the boardwalk — penny arcades and all of that stuff,” Andy
says. “But I love to go from store to store with the kids and show them things they’ve never seen. When-
ever they would see something new, it was like I was seeing it new again.”
Though he tried, Andy didn’t get to see the boardwalk through their eyes. He managed two,
maybe three, blocks of the sprawling complex with the youngsters enthusiastically surging ahead while
he lagged behind.
Frustrated to no end, he turned around and limped back to the truck. He had endured the pain
in his leg during the long drive from Pittsburgh, but he couldn’t endure the pain of not sharing the
beach with his grandchildren.
“That’s when I realized I had to do something,” he says. “I couldn’t even walk to the beach.
Maybe I limped there once and lay there for a while, but really, I just stayed by the pool.”
Andy, a man who had always prided himself in healthy living, couldn’t stand it.
“I’m Mr. Health. I was still working out every morning, but I couldn’t go anywhere.”
He was sure that a lifetime of lifting weights had finally caught up with him. His back finally
had had enough of the strain he had placed upon it, and a slipped disc now was demanding surgery.
And when he returned to Brentwood from last summer’s vacation, he was sure his chiropractor would
tell him as much.
* * *
Expecting to be out of commission from six to eight weeks after back surgery, Andy returned
home and began prepping coworkers on how to handle his follow-up duties for the Supported Employ-
ment Project with Turtle Creek Valley Mental Health/Mental Retardation.
As a follow-up specialist, Andy is on the road every day, checking with his clients and their man-
agers to make sure everything’s running smoothly. If all’s well, the visits are social stops, with Andy
swapping small talk and one-liners with the manager and his client.
There’s little difference in how Andy speaks with his mentally disabled clients and anyone else.
He jokes with them, asks how their family is doing, discusses the bus routes they take to work and he
IN SEARCH OF A DIAGNOSIS
Limp leads Brentwood man down path to frightening discovery
“In Search of a Diagnosis” — the
first installment of “Living With-
out a Cure” — was published April
24, 2002, in The South Hills
Record. Copyright 2002 Trib Total
Media.

2. feigns anguish when they rebuff him for one of his jokes.
“They’ve become family to me, and I’m a person they look up to, especially the ones that I’ve
been with for eight years,” he says. “It’s like I’ve become their big brother.”
Like a big brother, indeed. When there’s a problem, Andy goes to bat to get his people more
hours on a schedule or more suitable work times. In these situations, he serves as a buffer between the
manager and worker, explaining the situation from his client’s perspective and suggestion a solution.
The job keeps him busy, partly because his clients aren’t centrally located. He travels all over the
county — for example, you could bump into him at the Taco Bell in Edgewood Towne Center, the Mon-
roeville Mall food court, the Bridgeville Giant Eagle, the Pleasant Hills Pizza Hut, the cafeteria at Brad-
dock Hospital, the Denny’s in Monroeville or the McDonalds inside the West Mifflin WalMart.
It’s a fast-paced job. And Andy would have it no other way. Having worked in the bar business
for 26 years before joining the Supported Employment Project, Andy thrives on interacting with peo-
ple. And though he wasn’t thrilled at the prospect of being sidelined for a couple months, the surgery
would be worth it, as long as it rid him of that damn limp.
* * *
Though Andy was convinced that pinched nerves in his back were the cause of the problem, a
quick diagnosis eluded his chiropractor, Dr. Richard Robbins. Andy had been seeing Robbins for neck
and shoulder problems associated with his weightlifting, and he told the chiropractor of his leg pain as
well.
In addition to the pain, Andy had a condition known as “drop foot.” Think of a foot that has
fallen asleep. Now think of that foot never waking and you have a pretty good grasp of the condition.
“It really affected my balance,” Andy says. “Now I was always holding the railing when before I
had run up and down the steps.
“And any time we had anything planned, I would think ahead about how much I would have to
walk.”
The problem wasn’t just physical.
“Plus, there was the embarrassment,” he says. “Here I am with all that macho crap, and it was
just so frustrating because I had been so active.”
Robbins began with orthopedic tests then moved on to stimulating Andy’s muscles to relax any
that had swelled and were pressing on nerves. He tried some adjustments on Andy’s back and soon
graduated to a technique that spreads and separates vertebrae that become compressed and wear out
the nerves along the spine.
One after another, the treatments failed to alleviate the problem. Robbins suspected the culprit
fell outside of the scope of chiropractic medicine.
That began Andy on a series of visits with his physician, Dr. Martin Duclos, and neurologists
and neurosurgeons.
First, an MRI of his back was ordered. It came back virtually identical to one that had been
taken five years earlier.
Andy was told it wasn’t his back. At the time, he thought that was great news.
* * *
It wasn’t just a limp. Andy’s foot and leg simply weren’t reliable. Sometimes it was as if they
weren’t there.
He began to fall.
Andy still dabbled in the bar business, working the occasional weekend as a bartender for ban-
quets, wedding receptions and the like. But the job he had mastered more than two decades ago had
begun to pose challenges.

3. He would squat down to grab a beer from a cooler and find that he couldn’t raise himself back
up. And his leg and foot betrayed him other ways.
Though he tried to consider the ramifications of his every step, inevitably there were times at
home and at work when the weakness in his leg and foot caught him by surprise.
He fell behind the bar during a wedding reception. And as was the case at Myrtle Beach, his ail-
ment affected him while his grandchildren were around.
They were sprawled across Andy’s living room floor doing homework or watching TV when
Andy stepped over one and set his foot down. He may as well have tried to stand on a cloud.
Immediately, the grandchildren professed their innocence. While they emphatically denied trip-
ping their grandfather, Andy pulled himself to his feet, wondering what was wrong with him.
* * *
“I’m thinking positive things when the tests come back, not negative,” Andy says of the exams his
physicians ordered. “That means I don’t have what they’re looking for.
“But at the same time, part of me doesn’t want to go to the doctors, too. Because I’m a little
afraid of what they might find.”
Bit by bit, the doctors were ruling out various problems as they ordered MRIs of his brain, neck
and back and began to test the strength of his muscles.
Around October and November they had begun to suspect the cause but they wanted to be cer-
tain by first ruling out all other possibilities. So had Carol, a registered nurse.
Then an electromyography test showed very abnormal readings when pins sent electrical pulses
through his muscles. Finally in December a name could be given to the problem.
Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis.
Those three words didn’t mean much to Andy, but they confirmed Carol’s suspicions. Andy had
Lou Gehrig’s Disease.
* * *
When he gave the diagnosis, the neurologist explained the basics of the disease and told Andy he
could expect to live another two to five years. And, Carol says, so as not to overwhelm the patient, he
provided pages of information on the disease to be read at home.
Carol called off the rest of the day at work. They left the office and on the way began talking
about how the disease would change Andy’s life.
And when they got home, Andy — the musclebound guy who’s quick with a one-liner but not
with public affection — did something he rarely did.
He hugged his wife.
Next week: While Andy educates himself about the disease, he also changes aspects of his
lifestyle in hopes of increasing his chances for survival.