These days, my house is filled with laughter. Small moments of joy that burst out uncontrollably. My family knows it is part of the pseudobulbar effect of ALS, but I know that my mom is still a naturally spirited person. As someone who has been battling ALS for the last two years, the most beautiful thing that has come from it has been her contagious laughter. This journey didn’t start off joyfully. My mom first noticed something was wrong when she had a hard time speaking. Next came the locked jaw, tight chest pains, cold chills, and weaker limbs. Upon describing this to physicians, she was misdiagnosed with anxiety. After disputing this diagnosis multiple times, her anxiety diagnosis became speculated as Parkinson’s, then MS. At the age of 50, she was diagnosed with ALS in my freshman year of college. After learning about the cruelty of this incurable disease, I became her caretaker. My brother was still in his fourth year at UCLA with mandatory labs and my dad worked shifts until 2 am to support our family. I was starting my own degree in bioengineering but rushed to email professors, Academic Advisors, and the Financial Aid office. Making a two-hour drive from home to school for half of the week, I was managing a full-time schedule with a 3.81 GPA, working at the UCSD Career Center to pay for my college expenses, and attending online office hours all while communicating with physicians to seek medical help. As I was making appointments with the UCI ALS clinic, the Johns Hopkins ALS clinic, physical therapists, chiropractors, and speech therapists, medical costs quickly began to add up. We spent the last couple of months begging insurance companies and Medicare to see if there was any way for our insurance to cover the cost of Relyvrio and Radicava, one of them being $300,000 a year. We were denied twice since her breathing capacity was less than 80%. At this point, my mom could no longer lift her arms above her head, bathe or dress herself, or communicate easily. Soon, my father will be the only person working full time in my family to cover medical costs and help us pay for college. As we look into finding people to assist my mother at home, we have begun to struggle financially. As a student pursuing bioengineering, my main focus would be to work on biomedical devices which could assist people who struggle with ALS. For example, one of the contraptions which have helped my mother in the past few weeks has been a pulley system that allows her to semi-lift her arms. Another is a belt clip-on attachment which allows her to put a jacket on herself. Part of my mom’s adaptation to this disease has taught me that the way most things are not often designed for people with disabilities. The way that my mom has learned to adapt changes daily, but it gives me a new perspective on how assistive devices could be improved to allow her the independence she wishes to have. Being involved with the UC San Diego Biomedical Engineering Society, an organization that holds one of the largest undergraduate research symposiums at UCSD, I am currently exploring this field while being the Sub-Lead Department contact. As I look to further my career in engineering technical devices, I would also like to work with my mom’s occupational therapists on how to design new devices to make her and other ALS patients’ lives easier, and hopefully allow them to experience moments of joy like the ones I cherish with my mom.