Steve King: “I appreciate being recognized to address you here on the floor of the United States House of Representatives. I rise…”

“I appreciate being recognized to address you here on the floor of the United States House of Representatives. I rise today to honor Jaci Hermstad. She has given me so much inspiration. I want to start, though, with the early, sad part of this story. This is a sad story with a happy part in the middle of it right now, Mr. Speaker. Jaci's identical twin sister, Alex, was diagnosed with a very severe and aggressive form of ALS. That took place in 2005. Then, by 2010 and 2011, my staff and, especially, Sandy Hanlon in our Sioux City office, were working with the Hermstads to do those things we could do, in a limited fashion, admittedly. On St. Valentine's Day of 2011, sadly, Jaci's identical twin sister, Alex, passed away at age 17. Now, that is 8 years ago. About 2015 or so, Jaci and her mother, Lori, came to my office to talk with me about ALS, this dreaded Lou Gehrig's disease, that always ends up fatal. It always ends up in a sad, tragic ending. They had experienced that with Jaci's identical twin sister. Even more sadly, there was news that symptoms showed up in Jaci late last fall, around the holiday time. By Christmas she couldn't get up the stairs any longer, and again, on St. Valentine's Day of this year, Jaci was diagnosed with the aggressive form of ALS that her identical twin sister had passed away from. Now, they had donated some of her sister's tissue to science, and two significant companies, Columbia University, and Dr.…”