Last Updated on October 20, 2020
This “Surviving & Thriving” interview is presented by Florida Hospital. With the right kind of care and support and the right attitude, it’s possible to not only survive life’s greatest challenges but to thrive in the aftermath.
Lynne and Augie Nieto were high school sweethearts who got married and started a storybook life. He created LifeFitness, one of the largest gym equipment companies in the world, but at the age of 47, it all came crashing down when he was diagnosed with ALS. It plunged Augie and Lynne into a world they never even knew existed.
Now, together, they’ve launched Augie’s Quest with a mission of raising funds to find a cure.
She explains how his suicide attempt three months after his diagnosis became a turning point for their family. She honestly and candidly describes her family’s difficult journey over the past 10 years of living with the disease but reveals how it’s a much more rewarding and enriching life than they ever imagined when he was first diagnosed.
Lynne also explains the shift in thinking they’ve seen about ALS over the past decades, from focusing on just living briefly with the disease before death to truly talking about a cure.