Story about Man with ALS Seeking Experimental Treatment

Here's a New York Times article, "Fighting for a Last Chance at Life" that ran on the cover of the May 17th issue about a man with ALS (often called "Lou Gehrig's disease") trying to get access to the one drug that might be able to help him.
I'm including it here as a reminder - to myself and maybe to you as well - that cancer isn't the only serious disease out there, although the word "cancer" seems to evoke more fear. Contemplating this story can help our training in compassion. Speaking of compassion, note especially the bold below, about the compassionate homeless man who helped when no one else would.

Some excerpts:
In the daylight, she still had trouble believing that her athletic, magnetic son had the devastating disease with an unknown cause, named for the 1930s New York Yankees star whose career was cut short by it. When Joshua’s racquetball racket flew out of his hand because he could not grip it, his mother’s diagnosis was tennis elbow. When the first neurologist mentioned A.L.S., she scheduled more tests, rooting for Lyme’s disease, multiple sclerosis or even cancer. ... Like the 5,600 other people given the diagnosis each year in the United States, Dr. Rothstein said, Joshua would almost certainly die of the disease in 2 to 5 years.
...
In late July, Joshua fell in the street near Times Square on a trip to New York with his wife, Joy, and could not get up. Joy could not lift him, and passers-by did not stop. Finally, a homeless person watching from the corner came to help.
The event was traumatic for Joshua, who was beginning to experience another symptom of the disease, too, a lack of control over his emotions. At the weekly poker game with his friends, he could no longer bluff.
...
Involuntary twitches known as fasciculations signaled which of Joshua’s muscles would be the next to go. His mother watched the disease spread from his right arm to his left arm to his left leg. A natural storyteller who had played toastmaster at friends’ weddings and charmed business associates with stories of his misadventures in surfing and snowboarding, Joshua began to slur his words in what is known as the “A.L.S. accent.”
...
“His [newborn] son keeps sitting on his lap saying ‘Hello, Dada,’ waiting for Josh to say hello,” [said Josh's Mom].
...
... the application [for the experimental drug to the FDA] had been rejected, [his Mom] stood up in disbelief.
“How could that be?” she asked, dazed.
“He said they had safety concerns,” ... “This for a drug that was approved for children!”
“Safety,” Kathy repeated. “And what, exactly, is safe about A.L.S.?”
...
His swallowing had deteriorated to the point that he choked after just two sips of an Orange Crush soda he asked his mother to bring him one night. When he finally agreed to have a feeding tube inserted in mid-February, his family viewed it as a statement that he wanted to live. But the tube also represented a new frontier in the heartbreak of A.L.S., which took away small pleasures every day, and sometimes big ones.
...
EPILOGUE: In April, Joshua signaled that he felt he was swallowing better, and to Joy and Kathy he seemed to be regaining tone in his voice. But on Easter Sunday, he was rushed to the hospital with pneumonia and is still on a ventilator. He continues to take [the experimental drug] Iplex every day.