Friends’ generosity boosts ELCO grad Tyler Starry in ALS fight

“Do not go gentle into that good night. Rage, rage against the dying of the light.”

Dylan Thomas, American poet, 1847

“We got your back, buddy, now and forever. You will not want for anything if we can help it. We love you, pal. Just keep fighting. Also, (expletive deleted) ALS.”

Friends of ELCO grad Tyler Starry

Tyler Starry is waging a spirited but completely unfair fight against a terminal disease, ALS, at age 29.

Starry, a former standout basketball and baseball player at ELCO, will no doubt take the same approach to life as Thomas urged his ill father to in the famous poem. But even if he wouldn’t, his countless friends and supporters would still be behind him, raging themselves to boost their friend’s spirits. That is how much Starry’s friends care about him.

No well-intentioned but ultimately hollow “Hang in there” sentiments for this group. They have put their money where their mouths are, more than once already.

The latest example of the love and loyalty Starry’s friends and supporters feel for him came the weekend of Oct. 24-26, when they combined their resources and their burning desire to help by raising a staggering $55,000-plus via a GoFundMe page and a raffle held at Union House Tap Room and Livery in Richland by the staff that has enjoyed their patronage over the years.

It was an incredible display of generosity by a group of people who didn’t need to prove anything to anyone but did so anyway, purely out of the goodness of their hearts.

Needless to say, the beneficiaries of the funds, Starry and his father, Steve Starry, who will be facing some substantial medical bills for the foreseeable future, were absolutely blown away, if not surprised by the gesture.

“I was told they set a record,” Starry said, noting that Union House owners told him it was the most money the business had raised for anyone in its 34 years of existence. “It was pretty wild to be received like that. I thought we’d get like $500, something like that I don’t know if I have the right words to accurately describe it. I don’t even know what to say.”

Dad Steve was similarly grateful for the outpouring that his son was the recipient of from his friends.

“I just thought it was awesome,” he said. “I was kinda overwhelmed by the amount of people that showed up. It was awesome.”

It was a day of smiles and happiness that stood in stark contrast to a day roughly seven months earlier, when Starry was diagnosed in March with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, a rare, terminal neurodegenerative disorder that affects the motor neurons of the brain and spinal cords and can lead to paralysis, loss of motor control, and breathing and cognitive problems.

Also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease for the former New York Yankees slugger, whose career and life ended prematurely because the disease, ALS has a general survival rate of just two to five years. It is most prevalent in the 40-70 age group, with younger patients tending to live longer, particularly those who receive proper treatment.

The diagnosis did not come totally out of left field for Starry, who knew something was wrong for more than a year, due to the fact that he was having trouble walking and couldn’t run properly, often tripping and falling, something that was definitely not the norm for the rangy ELCO and Myerstown center fielder of the mid-2010s.

“Since March officially, unofficially since last year when I started noticing symptoms and stuff,” Starry said. “Just tripping, having trouble walking. I rolled my ankle a couple times on the golf course and we just laughed and didn’t think anything of it. I couldn’t run anymore, just dragging my left leg. This year, it’s hit me like a brick wall, honestly.”

As is the case with another neurological disease, Parkinson’s, which Starry’s late mother Maureen battled, with Tyler by her side as a caregiver, hope for a cure for ALS seems to be making slow but steady inroads, but has not yet materialized. For example, treatment is still rather insignificant, with Starry taking just one pill a day to help keep the disease at bay.

It has all led to an unexpected retirement at age 29 for Starry, who was previously a sales consultant at Maguire Ford. It’s not the life he wanted at this point but he is determined to make the best of it.

“I was down pretty bad for a hot minute,” he said. “But I can do whatever I want now, I’m retired at 29. My family keeps me busy and we got some things planned.”

Whatever he wants to do, friends like Matt Achey, Emily Chestnut, and Anna Fies-Sonnen will be by his side making sure he gets the most out of every moment, which now comes with the aid of a cane and a boot he must wear to keep his foot from dropping.

“He is still trying his best to take care of himself and live in the moment,” Chestnut said. “I’ve been along for the whole journey of his prognosis and it’s been incredibly hard to witness, just as I’m sure it’s been hard for him to live with.”

“I just want him to be comfortable and I just want more time,” Achey said. “We’ve been best friends since 7th grade and we turn 30 this year. As Tyler said, ‘We’re gonna live life until we can’t.’ so that’s what we’re gonna do.”

And maybe pretending the good old days are still here isn’t a bad coping mechanism, either.

“I’m thankful to have known Tyler (his friends call him Starry) since we were about 14,” Chestnut said. “He was always the jokester, trying to make everyone laugh and always succeeding. He has always had this captivating charm about him. I think maybe it was the smirk on his face at all times. I always told him he had this light in his eyes. You knew whenever you were around him that it was going to be an unforgettable time. Were you going to get in trouble…? Absolutely. But you were always going to have a ton of fun before that. I remember watching him play baseball all throughout high school and he seemed to always be working out or hanging out with friends. We’ve been in and out of each others lives since then. I’m thankful to have him now as one of my best friends.”

And ALS be damned, Starry’s friends are ready to continue to fight like hell, right along with him.

“The stuff we do now, and the time we spend together, I’ll take that for as long as I can because deep down time is against us and that sucks,” Achey said, “Watching your best friend go through this sucks. And I know if the roles were reversed, he’d be doing the same for me and my family.”

The ALS diagnosis and the hardships it brings have led Starry to a revelation about his hometown, one that is decidedly different than it used to be.

“It’s funny, I always thought I needed to move away from Lebanon as a young kid,” he said. “I’m pretty quaint and simple right now, so maybe Lebanon was perfect for me.”

You may find a few people who are certainly glad Starry decided to stick around, as they made clear during the fundraising drive for their dear friend.

“We had over 80 gift baskets items donated for raffle sales, nearly $2,000 in gift cards, and outright donations that far exceeded our expectations,” Fies-Sonnen said of the event that Union House created for Starry. “I’ve been a firm believer that ‘it takes a village,’ and our little community in the eastern end of the county certainly showed out for one of it’s own. Saturday was the single busiest night we have ever had at the bar. It was absolutely incredible and we were so blessed to be a part of this great event.”