State Sen. Gary Kubly was diagnosed last month with ALS — Lou Gehrig's Disease — but the Granite Falls DFLer says he'll keep working hard at the Capitol for the rest of his term.

“I can’t just sit around here feeling sorry for myself,’’ Kubly, 67, told the West Central Tribune.

Kubly, a retired Lutheran minister, served three terms in the state House from 1996 to 2002 and then was elected to the Senate. He was re-elected to a third Senate term in November but says he won't run in 2012.

The paper describes ALS as a "neurological disease that causes muscles to weaken and eventually leads to paralysis and death," and notes that the Mayo Clinic says its progression can be fatal in as little as two to three years after diagnosis.

But Kubly told the paper he knows of people who have managed the disease for 10 or more years, "and even one case of a person who survived for 21 years after diagnosis."

The paper said:

[Kubly] said he may not have run again had he been diagnosed before the election, but now is glad that he wasn’t. He feels confident and more than capable of doing his job. He believes his experience and the growing pastoral role that he plays in the Legislature are needed now more than ever.

He uses an electric cart to make the trips in the tunnel connecting his office in the Senate Office Building to the Capitol.

His muscles tire and will bother him if he stands for too long, so his other accommodation to the disease is to find a chair and seat himself wherever he goes.

...And, he’s convinced that prayer, a positive attitude and a sense of purpose all matter. Kubly has counseled many people through his role in the ministry and knows the last thing to fall into is what he calls the “pity pot.’’

“People ask: Why me? I really haven’t asked that question,’’ he said. He said he’s made peace with what’s happened and is concerned now only with moving on and dealing with the challenges before the Legislature.