Nancy O’Dell Opens Up About Mother’s Fight With ALS

[For more information on ALS, visit www.ALS-MDA.org]

As the host of Access Hollywood, Nancy O’Dell has spent years sharing the stories of the stars, but now, she has come forward to share one of her own.

If you haven’t seen her on the show everyday lately as you’ve become accustomed to, it is because Nancy has been spending time focusing on research for her family, talking with expert doctors and visiting with her parents as much as possible after finding out late last year that her beloved mother and best friend, Betty, has ALS/Lou Gehrig’s Disease.

“I’m literally at home researching trying to find out what I can and that’s why I want to do something about it,” Nancy said. “I debated, ‘Do I want to say anything about it? Am I even going to be able to talk about it? Am I going to break down in tears every time somebody talks about it? My sister and husband gave me so much strength yesterday, by both simply saying, ‘You can make something good come out of something awful.’”

Nancy is coming forward to share her story to bring attention to the disease, which is also known as ALS, in the hopes it will shed light on the illness, which currently has no cure. According to the MDA’s Web site the disease affects nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord and affects muscle movement.

“There is medical equipment out there which can help with what ALS causes and you better believe my sister, my dad and I are gathering all the information we can, as quickly as we can,” Nancy said.

Like any person who loves their parents — finding out her mother was affected by the disease, was a blow.

“It’s so weird, it’s almost like an out of body experience because you always think that your parents are your rock, you think nothing is ever going to happen to them,” Nancy said. “To hear that someone so close to you is diagnosed with a disease, you think ‘This can’t be happening. This is not my parent you’re talking about,’ because you always picture your parents just being invincible.”

Nancy says her mother has always been her best friend. She and her mother used to speak on the phone for a half an hour every day, but the disease has taken Betty’s voice. Not willing to let anything interfere with their loving relationship, Nancy is trying to teach her mom new technology, so they can keep up their regular conversations.

“We e-mail, but I want to show her how to use iChat, so mom can write what she wants to say and hold it up for me to read. That way we can see each other,” she explained.

And while Nancy and her family are finding ways to deal with the disease, she is hoping that sharing her story will encourage others to join in the fight to find a cure and fund research.

“After she was diagnosed and I finally pulled it together, I spent several weeks straight on the Internet, learning about the disease and researching. I didn’t know a lot about it,” Nancy said. “That’s one reason why I want to try and raise awareness about it and research and funding because…there [are] what I call ‘orphan diseases’ where there’s not as much attention given to them and not as much funding given to them, yet more and more people are coming down with the ALS. It is so tough trying to find all the latest information and sort through it when I don’t have a medical degree. The organization MDA/ALS has been wonderful. They were there at the hospital the very day my mom was diagnosed. It’s another reason I wanted to come forward…to help them, as I know they will help many other families as they did us when they hear the shocking diagnosis.”

Since she went public with the news just two days ago, Nancy has been overwhelmed by the support of friends, family and people she didn’t even know.

“I’ve gotten so many e-mails. I haven’t even had a chance to read them all. I’m just pulling them up slowly one by one because each one of them makes me cry,” Nancy said of the touching notes. “I’ve gotten a ton of emails and people already offering their support and I am so appreciative.”

Nancy hopes that by sharing her private news, it will help out the family she loves so dearly.

“I am so fortunate to have the most incredible parents. My dad has been the father and husband everyone would want through something like this. He follows my mom around and won’t stop holding her hand. And my mother is an amazing woman,” Nancy concluded. “If I am half the mom that she is, I will be an incredible mom.”

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