“Would you rather have A.L.S., Alzheimer’s, or Parkinson’s?” someone asked. All those diseases are devastating, but A.L.S. is unique in that it usually kills within two to three years of diagnosis. It was just a game to my friends, all of whom are in their 20s. Everyone chose A.L.S., agreeing that it would be the fastest and therefore easiest death.

But I stayed silent. I hadn’t yet told my friends that I had been diagnosed with A.L.S. in July — two months after my 29th birthday. Had I been healthy, I might have answered A.L.S., too. But since my diagnosis, all I have wanted is more time.

When I first noticed I couldn’t type with my left hand, the doctors narrowed down it down to two options: a treatable autoimmune disease or A.L.S. They initially began treating me for the autoimmune disease. About once a month, we shut down my immune system so it would stop attacking my central nervous system. But with no immune system I made regular visits to the E.R. “At least it’s not A.L.S.,” I consoled myself.

When the treatment didn’t work and the weakness spread to my left leg and right hand, A.L.S. was the only remaining possibility. Still, I did that socially acceptable but also borderline insane thing where I sought second, third and fourth opinions.

I voluntarily subjected myself to excruciating medical tests. I got shocked with electricity, had my spinal fluid drained, and underwent a surgery to remove a piece of my muscles and nerves, all in the hopes of finding a different diagnosis. All of the tests confirmed the diagnosis of A.L.S.

While the diagnosis has been heartbreaking, I have recently found a new reason to hope.

A new A.L.S. medication called GM6 has shown in a 12-person trial to dramatically slow down the progression on the disease. The drug maker, Genervon, a Pasadena biopharmaceutical company, announced in January a single-patient study of a 46-year-old man with A.L.S. for 10 years. After 12 weeks of taking the drug, the man showed small improvements in speech and swallowing, and certain proteins used to signal disease progression actually moved back toward the normal range.

GM6 has also been studied in 67 other patients as a treatment for stroke and Parkinson’s disease. Unfortunately, given the length of time it takes to win approval for a new drug, it will be about 12 years, $4 billion and many more deaths before GM6 makes it into my medicine cabinet. I will be in a wheelchair, using a feeding tube, or dead by then.

The Food and Drug Administration has the power to stop that from happening for thousands of A.L.S. patients, including me, if it grants “accelerated approval” to drugs that are deemed safe and can help terminally ill people. This program was first implemented for H.I.V./AIDS medication in 1992 — an issue depicted in the Oscar-winning film “Dallas Buyers Club.” Accelerated approval is often used for cancer drugs, and it is estimated that about one-third of all drugs are approved after one study.

Genervon now is seeking accelerated approval of its A.L.S. drug, possibly as early as this week. More than 120,000 people have signed an online petition that urges the F.D.A. to wave its magic wand and make this drug available to the 30,000 people fighting this wretched disease.

It is not going to be an easy battle. The F.D.A. is unlikely to approve any drug based on a single-patient trial or a 12-patient study, according to Grace Pavlath, the scientific program director for the Muscular Dystrophy Association who spoke with MDA/ALS Newsmagazine.

However, granting GM6 accelerated approval would not be unprecedented. The F.D.A. has accelerated other drugs based on much smaller evidence, like it did in the 1990s for the drug Riluzole, the only F.D.A.-approved medication for A.L.S. Riluzole increases lifespan by two to three months. When the drug was first introduced 20 years ago, the F.D.A. made it available for about 10 percent of A.L.S. patients as part of an early access program. Dr. David Kessler, the F.D.A. Commissioner at the time, said he hoped it was “just a first step.”

That was in 1995, the year of compact disc players and Blockbuster nights; and while those things are now outdated, Rilozule remains the only treatment on the market for A.L.S.

That word “treatment” is laughable, because a few months added to life expectancy is a terrible joke. Rilozule is also expensive. With Medicare, it costs anywhere from $1,000 to $2,000 a month. Anthony Carbajal, the 26-year-old photographer with the famed “Kiss My A.L.S.” Ice Bucket Challenge video, said he no longer takes it, because without insurance it would cost him $400 a day.

Rilozule also comes with a slew of side effects: “weakness” and “difficulty breathing” stand out because those also are actual symptoms of the disease. After battling the side effects for a couple of months, I also discontinued the medicine.

While I have given up on Rilozule, that doesn’t mean I’m waiting around to die. I will act on even a tiny glimmer of hope. I have carried about $500 worth of CBD, a non-psychoactive ingredient in cannabis that has alleviated my symptoms, on a plane from Colorado to my home in New York. When I read that coconut oil might slow down the disease’s progression, I shoveled spoonfuls of the plain, tasteless goo into my mouth, with no results. Sarah Coglianese wrote on her A.L.S. blog, “If I’d been told there was a chance that living in the washing machine and eating Styrofoam would help me, I would have done it.”

If GM6 was safe enough for 80 people, the F.D.A. should decide that it’s safe enough for me and the 30,000 people with A.L.S. I’m dying slowly and painfully and young, and I’m willing to take the risk.

Angelina Fanous is a senior associate editor at VICE.