Four years ago, Cissy Larkin’s husband, Christopher Larkin, was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS).
Both Larkins, based in Houston, have worked in mortgage for decades. Christopher is a sales executive for Plaza Home Mortgage‘s National Correspondent Division and still working through his diagnosis, while Cissy is a board member of the Texas Mortgage Bankers Association and a business development executive at My Utilities.
Christopher attended Texas A&M University and played football as an Aggie. Now, Cissy is enlisting the influence of Christopher’s alma mater to pull off a wide-scale ALS fundraiser.
“I called A&M [in December 2024] and I said, ‘I want to raise money for ALS.’ Because, you know, what can you do? There’s no remedy. There’s no cure…And the federal government is suspending a lot of the funding that ALS gets because it’s not cancer, it’s a disease that doesn’t get much awareness,” Cissu said. “So anyway, they said yes. We’re trying to do the largest ice bucket challenge on the field, and the Aggie band leader is going to help us spell out Aggie Land against ALS.”
The fundraiser, which also involves a 5K run and walk, will take place on Nov. 1 at Aggie Park in College Station, Texas. Fundraising for the event kicked off on May 1 — the start of ALS awareness month— with the goal of raising $1 million for ALS research by the start of the fundraiser.
Cissy said the mortgage industry has rallied to their cause, with Plaza Home Mortgage designing a marketing campaign around the fundraiser. Her fellow TMBA board members are also providing support. “They have all said, ‘Just tell us what we need to do,’” Cissy said.
The life of an ALS caregiver
Cissy says that before taking a position at My Utilities, she was working at Informative Research in a position that required travel. “I actually quit my job just to make sure I wasn’t traveling so much and to be with him,” she said. “ALS patients usually die within two to five years of being diagnosed. And then I was just scared. This has been the fourth year, but he’s still here, he just can barely walk and barely talk.”
Now, the duo operates as Team Larkin, with Cissy attending all of Christopher’s appointments as he continues to work for Plaza Home Mortgage.
As an ALS caregiver, Cissy explained that she was able to attend an ALS Association conference last year in Dallas, meeting with different ALS researchers. Through networking, Cissy is now the chairman of the ALS Association’s advocacy committee for Texas.
On Monday, the Chris Larkin ALS Act (HB 2516) was passed unanimously out of the Texas House of Representatives, which provides affordable supplemental insurance for people under 65 years with disabilities. Both Christopher and Cissy testified for the bill in front of the House, which Cissy recalled brought the room to tears.
“It’s scary because you don’t know what’s going to happen tomorrow…you don’t know when the person’s going to die and don’t know when they’ll never speak again…And my husband, he tries to be strong, and he says, ‘Look, none of us are going to get out of here alive. We have to live every day to the fullest.’”
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