by Laura Cushing
Member since:
August 4, 2006

The Please Give My Character A Fatal Disease Post!

October 27, 2007 12:55 AM EDT
views: 100 | comments: 34
Hi - meet Gus, an aging rockstar in his mid-forties. During the band's heyday (they were a hair metal band in the late 80s) he spent a lot of time boozing and doing a wide variety of mind-altering substances along with the rest of his band.

Now that the band is doing a reunion tour, this is his last big hurrah because he has A Fatal Disease.

This disease must:

1) allow him to still tour , though with some difficulty is alright. Particularly in the beginning he should appear healthy and be capable of performance.

2) have symptoms that become increasingly severe as the tour goes on

3) be fatal; ie: something he is dying of.

I could have gone with the ol' standby of cancer of some sort (lungs), and I've considered cirrhosis , but I think he got over his hard drinking days.

Please help - this is my last major thing I want to iron out before starting. Inflict my character! Thank you. =)

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Comments: 34

Midnite Writer -- Kim Oct 27, 2007, 12:57am EDT
Hmmm, hogdkins disease?
Crohn's disease?
Parkinson's?
Gehrigs?
AIDS?
Allergic reaction? Ya know, the ambulance or any other medical help could possibly not reach him in time.
Steph-in-NE ..... Oct 27, 2007, 1:00am EDT
brain cancer,,,,, too lud of music
Influenza can be fatal.
Ron Jenkins Oct 27, 2007, 1:01am EDT
Multiple Sclerosis...MS...

Gus first felt the tingling in his fingers, and figured he must have slept wrong again.

Gus misses notes when playing guitar.

Gus attempts to hide the mistakes with various apologetic lies.

etc, etc, etc.
Multiple Sclerosis
Linda C. Oct 27, 2007, 1:08am EDT
MS - or ALS (Lou Gehrig's disease)Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), often referred to as "Lou Gehrig's disease," is a progressive neurodegenerative disease that affects nerve cells in the brain and the spinal cord. Motor neurons reach from the brain to the spinal cord and from the spinal cord to the muscles throughout the body. The progressive degeneration of the motor neurons in ALS eventually lead to their death. When the motor neurons die, the ability of the brain to initiate and control muscle movement is lost. With voluntary muscle action progressively affected, patients in the later stages of the disease may become totally paralyzed.
Jennifer F. Oct 27, 2007, 1:15am EDT
Parkinsons Disease
Ron Jenkins Oct 27, 2007, 1:29am EDT
Extreme halitosis....
Susan E. Oct 27, 2007, 2:27am EDT
MS would be effective for your character--there are good and bad days--symptoms get worse over time, etc.
libramoon C. Oct 27, 2007, 3:28am EDT
I clicked on this because I also have a character in need of a fatal disease. She is a woman in her fifties, has known for maybe a year or so that she is dying and arranged for early retirement. She is slowly becoming more disabled. It is too late, or the disease is too incurable, for any hope of beating it. She is using alternative therapies for symptomatic relief. She has arranged to go to hospice at the end, but meanwhile is basically able to get around and be lucid needing little care.
Manic Depression..Ends up killing himself
How about a GATHER Addiction?
antknee H. Oct 27, 2007, 8:02am EDT
Liver Cancer conbined with Hepatitus B brought on from Drug usage. This can and has killed years after sobriety. Looks fairly normal until the very end, then fades very quickly gone in a day or two.
Trish A. Oct 27, 2007, 10:07am EDT
Just because he's done with drinking doesn't mean the damage hasn't been done. There would be some irony to think he gave up drinking and yet it's what gets him.


Congestive heart failure--if he doesn't pay attention to it.
Rick McGirr Oct 27, 2007, 10:13am EDT
Spontaneous oxidation of the nervous system which goes misdiagnosed for two decades, to finally be discovered that it is caused by repeated exposure to veterinary tranquilizers during the band's first Canadian tour.
Rick McGirr Oct 27, 2007, 10:21am EDT
Bruce Lee, Jim Morrison, and a friend of mine, Steve Oleck, all died of mysterious viruses caught while travelling abroad. What's the name of that trendy new one that has people scurrying? Murtha? No that's a congressman. Google it.

Ref.: Frank Herbert wrote a book about a biochemist who loses his wife and kids in an Irish terrorist attack. He decides to go berserk, in his biochemist way, on humans by creating a virus that just kills all the women. So your subject could be innocently caught up in some chemical crossfire related to all this religious and patriotic fervor that's passing for the right thing to do these days, or he could be suffering long-term effects of mustard gas exposure or so...
JoAnn C. Oct 27, 2007, 11:14am EDT
parkinsons
J R B. Oct 27, 2007, 5:43pm EDT
Cancer of the rectum. Damage is already done from his drinking days. It has gone undetected for years. Now during the tour he can begin to have pain, He sees a doctor. Not until they have a colonoscofy scan do they find that it is too far advanced. It has already spread to his lymph nodes, liver and lungs. Too late to operate.
Pepsie J. Oct 27, 2007, 11:32pm EDT
Hypochondrias.
Ron Jenkins Oct 27, 2007, 11:39pm EDT
Syphilis
vickey w Oct 27, 2007, 11:42pm EDT
Brain tumor
Quinn (aka Entwife) Blackburn Oct 28, 2007, 3:04pm EDT
Lupis
DrBill G. Oct 28, 2007, 3:51pm EDT
Crohn's disease won't work, it is curable now, as long as you have not been treated before (how ironic). If he does not know he has it, he would not have had it treated before and therefore it would be curable now (if your story takes place in modern day). I would recommend aids, as it has no symptoms of consequence till it is well advanced and beyond treatment. it is also a disease that most people will deny, saying "not me"
libramoon C. Oct 28, 2007, 4:42pm EDT
ok, I did a little reserach into top fatal diseases in the US. I was looking for marginally different criteria. Here's the diseases I will be looking into first (unless someone gives me a better idea):

congestive heart failure
colon cancer
pancreatic cancer
ms
libramoon C. Oct 28, 2007, 10:37pm EDT
http://www.merck.com/mmhe/index.html
The Red Headed Witch of Gather G. Oct 31, 2007, 4:56pm EDT
asthma
Nick Soutter Oct 31, 2007, 11:04pm EDT
Lead Poisoning. He would brew his own beer and used lead solder to connect the piping. Or he drinks out of an old stein unknowingly made of lead. Cool thing is he gets to go paranoid too.
Charlotte Babb Maven-Fairy Godmother Nov 1, 2007, 2:56pm EDT
Congestive heart failure is one that can come on for years, and might not even be detected because of denial, of various other problems. It kills slowly, but can come on quickly too, at the last.

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