Mom received heartbreaking diagnosis after not being able to stand when trying to pick up her kids

A mom-of-four has shared the heartbreaking moment she discovered she had a debilitating disease, weeks after not being able to pick her kids up.

Salym Liufau was enjoying a family birthday party back in early 2022 when she attempted to squat down and pick up one of her children. However, despite having done it thousands of times before, she was unable to stand back up.

Weirdly, she wasn't in pain but the sensation felt strange to her. It couldn't have come at a worse time as she and her husband of 12 years were preparing to move from Las Vegas, Nevada, to Houston, Texas.

She brushed it off and continued on with her life, but just a few weeks later she began to lose feeling in her left foot - it was first a little floppy, but soon became unresponsive to the point where she could no longer move it.

A short stint on the treadmill reduced her to floods of tears, telling her husband 'something's wrong with me - seriously wrong'.

Salym Liufau was wheelchair-bound shortly after her first symptom showed (GoFundMe)

“I remember thinking, ‘Why can’t I run anymore?’," she told People. "I got on the treadmill and nothing. My body just wouldn’t cooperate."

Having settled into her new Texan home, Salym visited the doctor who took her bloods and told her everything was fine and that it 'might just be a vitamin issue'.

But she knew what was going on with her body was much worse, and pushed back before checking herself into Houston Methodist Hospital, where doctors escalated her case after discovering she had no reflex reactions in her left leg.

An entire year passed, with Salym trying to continue on with her life, raising an eight-year-old, a six-year-old and a pair of two-year-old twins.

Finally, in May 2023 she discovered exactly what was wrong with her body.

Funds raised by the GoFundMe have helped Salym purchase a much-needed motorized wheelchair (GoFundMe)

Recalling the moment a specialist doctor informed her of her devastating diagnosis, she said: "He looked at me and said, ‘This doesn’t look good'. When the biopsy results came back, he told me, 'You have ALS'."

Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), is a degenerative health condition that affects nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord and gets worse over time, according to the Mayo Clinic.

ALS, often referred to as Lou Gehrig's disease after the baseball player who suffered from it, affects muscle control which starts small, like twitching and weakness in an arm or leg, or difficulty swallowing or speaking, before slowly affecting the muscles needed to move, speak, eat and breathe over time.

The disease is fatal and has no cure, with people living typically three to five years after diagnosis, according to the Muscular Dystrophy Association, though some sufferers can live for many years.

The now 33-year-old continued: "The tears just started falling. My husband held it together. He looked at me and said, ‘It’s going to be okay.’ But my heart broke - not for me, for my kids. They’re so young. And for my husband.”

“It was like my soul left my body. A kind of pain you hope no one else ever has to feel."

Now, a GoFundMe page has been set up to help pay for medical bills and expenses for Salym.

The page, which was set up by her sister-in-law, explains: "We are hoping and praying that with this sudden and devastating news, this fundraiser will provide Salym with the treatment, resources, and accommodations needed to navigate this life-changing disease.

"Your donations will go towards medication, assistive devices for communication/transportation/breathing/eating, physical therapy, occupational therapy, speech therapy, respiratory therapy, in-home caregivers, home adaptations to make their home wheelchair accessible, and other things needed to live a quality life with ALS for both Salym and her family."