Bowdon Man, 1 of 5 in GA, Diagnosed With Often Fatal Degenerative Neurological Disorder

A Bowdon man meets with Georgia Governor Nathan Deal last week, campaigning to raise awareness for a disease, characterized by a group of often-fatal rare degenerative neurological disorders. Paul Aust is one of only five people in the state of Georgia diagnosed with Ataxia. Symptoms often include impairment of coordination, hearing, vision, and speech.

Aust was diagnosed with Ataxia in 1999 when he was in his early thirties, but he says there were signs as far back as when he was a toddler. “When I was an infant, my folks noticed I didn’t want to roll over or crawl—so they knew there was something up,” he says. “Then in childhood… back in the sixties dyslexia was kind of a ‘hot-button’ topic and they said this is what I had. The problems I had… reading from left to right… getting the muscles in my eyes trained to be able to do that.

Aust spent time in the military and worked in the local Gold Kist plant, when he and his wife decided in 1995 that at-one-time-simple physical and mental tasks were getting much more difficult and they needed someone to define what was happening to Paul. “I had kind of an awkward walking style, even back then,” he says. “It took about four years of being mis-diagnosed and bouncing around between neurologists and other places before a Doctor over at Emory finally said… This is the kind of category you fit in.”

Despite there being no effective treatment or cure for Ataxia, Aust and his wife remain positive and optimistic… and motivated to make others aware of the disease. “A lot of times, people will see me walking across the street and maybe say ‘that guy has a funny walk’ or they’ll listen to me and notice I have a little slurred speech,” he says. “They are always curious and wondering what’s up with this guy. My piece right now is just to help create that awareness.”