I think you should read this, from The New York Review of Books. Tony Judt has ALS and is 'effectively quadriplegic'. He writes, 'In the early stages of my disease the temptation to call out for help was almost irresistible: every muscle felt in need of movement, every inch of skin itched, my bladder found mysterious ways to refill itself in the night and thus require relief, and in general I felt a desperate need for the reassurance of light, company, and the simple comforts of human intercourse. By now, however, I have learned to forgo this most nights, finding solace and recourse in my own thoughts.
'The latter, though I say it myself, is no small undertaking. Ask yourself how often you move in the night. I don't mean change location altogether (e.g., to go to the bathroom, though that too): merely how often you shift a hand, a foot; how frequently you scratch assorted body parts before dropping off; how unselfconsciously you alter position very slightly to find the most comfortable one. Imagine for a moment that you had been obliged instead to lie absolutely motionless on your back—by no means the best sleeping position, but the only one I can tolerate—for seven unbroken hours and constrained to come up with ways to render this Calvary tolerable not just for one night but for the rest of your life.'
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My father was a polio survivor in his childhood, but then succumbed to MS in late middle-age. It was not pretty.
My son was a juvenile diabetic, until he died in an automobile accident at age 26.
Chronic diseases are tragic. "The only thing to do with death," Larry Mcmurtry has one of his characters say, "is to walk away from it."
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