Springfield man faced silent disease with courage

By Tom Adams KVAL News - October 25, 2010

SPRINGFIELD, Oregon - "The will to live."

Chris Cole lived by the words he scrawled on a dry erase board last August even as he battled the most insidious of diseases: ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig's disease.

On October 19, Chris lost the battle after only a year and a half.

It was a fight his mother says Chris fought stoically and without complaint.

"I think he felt, well, this is the way it is, I'll do my best; I'll hang on as long as I can," Vee Bundrant said.

KVAL News last visited Cole on August 30, a year after we first met him in September 2009.

In that first visit, Cole could not speak. The disease had taken his voice, and had to write on a dry erase board.

During the most recent - and last - interview, Cole used a computer to communicate.

"I can not believe I was walking last year," he said at the time.

His condition quickly worsened, but not before he fulfilled a final dream: a hot air balloon ride three weeks ago in Newberg with his son, Andrew.

Cole put a public face on a horrible disease - and taught us all a lesson, his mother said.

"Courage, courage," she said. "A lot of courage, a lot of courage."

Cole's courage was forged through his loving care for his older brother Tony, himself disabled by cerebral palsey.

Steve Loveland met Cole by fixing his kitchen floor.

"He was a friend I never talked to," Loveland said.

He became his caretaker.

"I never heard Chris' real voice other than on a tape, but he was just like a brother," he said.

A voice silenced by disease - but whose "will to live" came through loud and clear.