Lincoln North Star teacher retires after disease diagnosis

It was a bittersweet day for a Lincoln North Star High School teacher. A rare disease diagnosis forced a long-time Lincoln teacher to retire early.

Being given farewells all day, Al Bock is grateful he was able to return at all this school year.

“Mostly I’m just glad that I got to teach as long as I did. In the summer I didn’t think I’d get to teach again,” said Bock.

After teaching in Lincoln for 32 years, Bock wasn’t going to go down without a fight.

It started in August when he was giving his granddaughter a bath. He slipped, fell, and had a severe concussion. Later he got very sick, but when he went to the E.R., there were bigger concerns.

“The doctor there said ‘well, I’m not concerned about your concussion. I’m really concerned about the tremor you have in your left hand,'” said Bock.

The initial fear was Parkinson’s disease. Bock said he met with a Parkinson’s specialist. While he has many symptoms of Parkinson’s, he and doctors noticed other symptoms that were not common to the disease.

It was soon discovered that AL has Multiple System Atrophy. It’s a disease similar to Parkinson’s, but more aggressive and has no cure.

“That’s why I refer to this stuff as Parkinson’s little brother that’s meaner.”

Things quickly got worse. He began to lose strength in his legs and was constantly fatigued. His family tried to get him to retire before school began, but he was determined to power through.

“It was my whole life, and I didn’t want to give up my whole life yet. I got to school and I thought ‘well I’ll be ok, I can do this.’ As it wound up I couldn’t do it,” he said.

He began to lose his short-term memory. After a few weeks, he couldn’t remember who his students were. That’s when he decided it was time to step aside after only a month into the school year.

“Well I’ll quote the vernacular of the kids; it sucks. It’s really tough.”

Bock students have been fantastic and he proudly proclaimed he didn’t have a single disciplinary problem with them during the month. The entire school has been incredibly supportive and is sad to see him leave.

Even though his health is declining, Bock considers his last day at North Star is one of his best.

“Today isn’t going to go away for a long time. Today was probably my most memorable, to be honest. I mean, that was great.”