SPRINGFIELD, Mo.– When Bobby Mason was diagnosed with ALS back in early December, he was really more uncertain than anything. 

“When he said Lou Gehrig’s disease,” he said. “I’d heard of that.”

That uncertainty only got worse when he started looking toward the future. 

“My grandkids, my kids. I don’t know,” he told us while choking back tears. “I don’t know if I’ll be able to see my grandkids graduate high school, get married. I was lucky enough to… My daughter got married in October and I was lucky enough to walk her down the aisle.”

It wasn’t until a friend stepped in that Bob was reminded, there’s always something to look forward to. 

“The day of the diagnosis I was reading and the one thing I saw on every site,” says Bobby’s best friend Clint Fulmer. “Any site you look up on Google or whatever you do, it says, friends and family, get out and live. Get out and live your life because you don’t know.”

One month after Bobby’s diagnosis, his friend Clint threw him a surprise party. The only problem is: his 72nd birthday isn’t until October. 

“They kept yelling, ‘Happy 53rd! Happy 53rd!’,” Bobby says. “I told my wife, ‘I haven’t seen fifty-three in years. I still didn’t know what was going on’.”

It was never a birthday party. It was instead a party to celebrate Bobby’s surprise trip to see Super Bowl 53.

Thanks to a nearly a hundred people from across the country Bob is (for now) more concerned with finding the right thing to wear and how to get home.

“When the Rams moved to LA. I was very upset so I packed all my stuff up. Put it in rubber tubs,” Bobby laughed. “We’ll go back to the airport Monday and try to get back to Springfield. But what they’ve been telling me is there’ll be a hundred and 20 thousand people trying to get on flights.”

Of course, with friends this close, uncertainty’s are a little easier to manage. 

“That’s all immaterial to me,” he smiled. “I’ll be hanging out with him all day. So we’ll find something to do.”