'I have been lucky': Stephen Hawking's inspiring outlook on living with ALS

Stephen Hawking's lifetime of accomplishments that gained him worldwide fame and cultural icon status had to be achieved in the face of a disease he lived with most of his life — ALS.

Hawking died Wednesday at 76 following more than five decades with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), also known as motor neuron disease, or more commonly, Lou Gehrig's Disease. The condition affects nerves and the spinal cord, inhibiting a person's ability to move or communicate.

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Both happened to Hawking, who used a wheelchair and spoke through a speech synthesizer for most of his life.

Hawking, in 2002, described his first symptoms, the initial doctor's appointments and a bit of reflection on his life. He explained it was a "great shock" to get the disease, which he said starts with "bad absorption of vitamins."

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"In my third year at Oxford (University), I noticed that I seemed to be getting more clumsy, and I fell over once or twice for no apparent reason," he told the British Medical Journal in 2002. "But it was not until I was at (the University of) Cambridge that my father noticed, and took me to the family doctor. He referred me to a specialist, and shortly after my 21st birthday, I went into hospital for tests."

At first, he wasn't given an ALS diagnosis. Doctors, he recalled, told him it was atypical and "not multiple sclerosis."

"I gathered, however, that they expected it to continue to get worse, and that there was nothing they could do, except give me vitamins," he told the journal. "I could see that they didn't expect them to have much effect. I didn't feel like asking for more details, because they were obviously bad."

Soon, the would-be author of A Brief History of Time, was faced with his own mortality.

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"The realization that I had an incurable disease that was likely to kill me in a few years was a bit of a shock," he said.

However, he survived, allowing him to share his thoughts on everything from black holes, the Big Bang and the beginnings of the universe for decades. He also got married, had three children and had a movie made about him.

"I have had motor neuron disease for practically all my adult life," he told the journal. "Yet it has not prevented me from having a very attractive family, and being successful in my work. This is thanks to the help I have received from Jane, my children, and a large number of other people and organizations. I have been lucky, that my condition has progressed more slowly than is often the case. But it shows that one need not lose hope."

Follow Sean Rossman on Twitter: @SeanRossman