
For Love and Life: No Ordinary Campaign

In the extraordinary 2024 documentary, For Love and Life, portraits in courage, we witness ALS patient Brian Wallach as well as his wife, Sandra, as they power through a commitment to fight for a cure.
Previously an Obama administration lawyer, Brian and Sandra, also a lawyer, become indefatigable activists for ALS, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, a disease whose prominence and awareness are due largely to the baseball player, Lou Gehrig, and the physicist, Stephen Hawking. Both Gehrig and Hawking had endured the inevitable disabilities which weaken and then atrophy all muscles, including for speech, swallowing, and finally breathing.
With acumen in community organization and skills in political influence, Brian and Sandra begin a campaign to make the country aware of this incurable disease and its impact on those diagnosed with it. They lobbied to shorten Medicare’s waiting periods as many ALS patients died before Medicare approval. They lobbied the FDA to allow ALS patients access to experimental drugs. They lobbied to increase funding for research, resulting in hundreds of millions of dollars. And they lobbied for better palliative treatment and hopefully, a cure.
Deeply personal yet inspirational, For Love and Life walks us through the daily routine of Brian’s stoic acceptance of Sandra’s injections of medicine into his heart muscle, her becoming his voice in front of Congress, and the agony to make it through another day both physically and emotionally. With two young daughters who see their father increasingly disabled over a period of seven years, Brian and Sandra are truly portraits in courage, advocating for those who have lost their own voice.
With nearly a billion dollars now budgeted by Congress due to this ALS movement (called I Am ALS) present and future ALS patients may no longer have to face a death sentence, often within six months of diagnosis.
Heroic and inspirational, For Love and Life is a testimony to the love of life, holding on, not letting go, and not giving up hope. The resilience of the human spirit is indeed a wonder to behold.
Availability: Amazon Prime
Note: Have you ever wondered where the “Ice Bucket Challenge” originated? That was the fundraising genius of Brian Wallach and Sandra Abrevaya in increasing awareness of ALS.