By JANE E. ALLEN, ABC News Medical Unit
When David Diehl, a third-generation family farmer, became aparaplegic five days after an autoimmune condition attacked his spinal cord in 1991, he began driving his tractor and combine using rails and his hands. When his doctor diagnosed multiple sclerosis in 1998, he made adjustments. When the MS left him blind in his left eye in 2000, he relied on faith and family to move beyond it.
But what really threw him was breaking into uncontrollable laughter at a friend’s funeral three years ago, when he bit his tongue so hard to stifle it that “I could almost taste blood.”
That involuntary laughter, and sudden, uncontrollable crying jags, are part of a neurological disorder that left Diehl, of East Helena, Mont., confused and apologetic. The inappropriate emotional outbursts during serious heart-to-heart talks with his wife Arlene stressed their otherwise rock-solid 35-year marriage. She missed her formerly good-natured husband. It wasn’t easy to have him interrupt a serious talk by laughing at her.
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