At the time the MND Coordinator in the hospital put us in, gave me a telephone number to contact the local association if I wanted support, and also gave me a personal file which the MND Association had put together to help people who were first diagnosed. That personal file was actually really helpful, that you could dip into it. And over the next few months I added sections to it as I found I wanted to know more. I didn’t want to contact the local association initially. I wanted to go away and lick my wounds. And we did have a holiday in Tuscany already booked, which was great. It was just what we needed. But after about a month I did ring the contact number of the local MND Association. It turned out, totally coincidentally, that I knew her, because she’d been my daughter’s singing teacher. And we started to go to the meetings. I think probably the December meeting was the first meeting that we went to. We both summoned up our courage and went to a meeting. And it took two or three meetings I suppose really to begin to feel comfortable meeting other people with MND, realising that it strikes everybody so differently and seeing somebody does not necessarily mean that’s how you’re going to be in a few months’ time. But we do appreciate the support we get from the group meetings, both my husband as a carer, meeting other carers, and myself. And the information that we get, yes, we find that really helpful. So we go regularly now to the meetings.

So actually going along to a local, getting some local support?

Yes, yes.

You said you summoned up the courage to go along. Tell me about how you were feeling about going beforehand.

Very mixed really. Feeling that we ought to give it a go. I suppose a big thing that I’ve had to move from is having been a head and having also kind of helped in a voluntary capacity at various places before, I’ve tended to be the helper. Now I’ve had to move to the situation where I’m the person being helped. And I think perhaps that was part and parcel of the emotional getting ready for these meetings. A very jolly chap was chair at the time and he immediately made us feel at ease by just treating us like everybody else. And I think that’s one of the big advantages of the meeting. You are just an ordinary person there, you’re not somebody special. But, yes, it was the hurdle of getting over meeting other people with MND. Which I know and I respect that some people just don’t ever want to do. But I have found it helpful rather than unhelpful.

What happened at the meeting?

The first meeting we went to, the speaker, because there’s usually a speaker, happened to be somebody from the head office of the Association, who was talking about Association visitors. And she did it in a very light-hearted quiz way and a bit like Who Wants to be a Millionaire. So although [my husband] and I, sorry, my husband and I didn’t know anything about the visitors at the time, we just joined in with a group and it was good fun. And there was coffee and chat and people would say, you know, ‘Nice to welcome you, you know. Why are you here? Which one of you’s got MND?’ because it wasn’t quite so obvious then. And, you know, just pleasant really, just friendly company. And that was great.

If somebody whos wanting, thinking about going along to a branch but was perhaps a bit anxious about going what, what was it like when you went at first and what are the benefits of going?

Oh that’s a very good question. In the, well probably my first year possibly longer I didn’t want to go to any association meetings. Partly because I, mainly I think probably because I didn’t want to see people who were poorly and were in a state, situation that I would be in some point in the future. A sort of a mini denial if you like.

And also I was aware that I was going to, you know I would not be typical. I’d, might sound a bit silly but I was a bit conscious that if I’m wandering around claiming I’ve got motor neurone disease and I’m there for year after year it might upset, upset people who were, weren’t, hadn’t been given very long to live, you know, one or two years. I mean that was, a silly idea of mine. And on the same vein it, it has been a little bit shocking on occasion. So we’ve, we’ve been going to both branches regularly for the last, I don’t know, five or more years. And I can remember one occasion we heard a, two new members, patients talking about their experiences and six months later they were both dead which is a, well a bit shocking really.

So that’s something that’s going along to the group is something you had to deal with because you, you get to know people like that.

Yes, yes. Having said that one of the branches has at least two people who are in the same situation I’m in. So, well, just proves we’re all different and you can’t make, shouldn’t make generalisations. There’s no point in, it’s, there’s no need not to make friends on the basis that they won’t be around in six months time because who, whos to know. And one of the, the guys is I think had the disease for over twenty years and he’s trying to emulate Steven Hawking, I think, but who knows?

I first got involved with the hospice in New Zealand, and I got hooked in by the offer of a free aromatherapy massage, because I’m a sucker for pampering [laughs]. So before I’d really had a chance to think about the fact that it was at a hospice, we were there going to have a little look. And it was a day hospice. And it was very, it was very small, and it was only about five minutes from our house. And it was lovely, and we met the, the manager there, who was just lovely, and I had a good blub with her for about an hour [laughs] and felt like we’d bonded and just really felt like it was another home. And gradually, and so I’d go for aromatherapy every week and, and then they also did facials and lovely things like that, and then gradually I went along to a support group that they were running on a Tuesday for younger people. When I say younger [laughs], I was still the youngest at 34. But it wasn’t for elderly, which is sometimes the perception of hospice. So they were typically women with breast cancer or some kind of cancer, ranging from late 30s to 50s really. And we’d do, well, we had a sort of coffee mornings to decide what sort of things we’d like to do. And we did silk painting and making felt, and all sorts of things that I’ve never done, never had any interest in. But it was lovely. And it meant that we had a focus for being there together. And we’d gossip away and, you know, talk about where we were on holiday to next. Or sometimes talk about medication or the side effects we’re going through, or just how we were feeling. And I really miss that group now. I was really reluctant to go at the start, at first. I didn’t want to be around other ill people.

But after the first time I went I really enjoyed it. And I, I found quite a bond with those girls that, although they’re completely different people and different ages, different interests, we had a sim-, we had the same outlook on life. Little things like, you know, we’d always be going on holiday. And, and when someone said, ‘Oh, I’m off to Fiji in two weeks time’ the other girls wouldn’t say, ‘Oh, aren’t you lucky? I’d love to go to Fiji. You know that you’re not lucky, you know that you’re making the most of the time that you’ve got. And it, just little things like that that weren’t said. So I miss them. And, and so when we moved to the UK, I was very keen to make contact with a hospice here and that network.

I haven’t yet. And that’s just really the time that I’ve been here. I did get a letter this morning from the MNDA inviting me to an event. And I’m going to need a bit of encouragement to go. Even though I’ve been to – I had this same feeling before I went to the, the group at the hospice before and, and knew that it was, once I went it was fine – it still makes me hesitant to do it again. And also, probably more so, with other MND suffers, sufferers. Even my cousin, my cousin’s also suffering from MND, and I’m hesitant about meeting up with her, although we’ve started talking on the phone more regularly, and I do, I really like that. I like that we can both rant on and we find the same things frustrating, and that someone really understands. But in the same way it makes me feel sad that I can talk about those things with my cousin.

Yeah, it’s a bit of a mixed thing, isn’t it?

It’s a mixed thing.

Because if you go and mix with other people whove got it, you’re going to see’

Further down the road, potentially.

Yeah, and – yeah.

And I think that’s the thing that is scary. And I’m not sure how it will benefit me at the moment.

So get involved with the programme, and try and accept it. Because once you’ve got that acceptance, then you can start planning. And you don’t have to get too, I haven’t got clinical with it. We take it one stage at a time. As I deteriorate to that level, so we make the decisions associated with that level.

So it’s not, you know, planning from now until, you know, I’m lying in a bed totally paralysed with somebody working me on a respirator or something, you know. Leave it, just concentrate on today, but accept the fact that you’ve got to live today, and become involved. Get involved with the Motor Neurone Association. A tremendous amount of goodwill and support comes from that, knowledge. The people in it are people who have nursed people whove suffered from motor neurone disease, and then carried on to become visitors of the association. It could be parents or loved ones that they’ve lost, but they want to put something back through the association. There’s a tremendous amount of support there. And if you go to carers’ meetings it’s not about medical – it’s about fun, it’s about how you enjoy yourself, making sure, you know, nice relaxing massage, you know, all sorts of things. You know, knowledge. You’re not on your own. Other people have been there. Why travel the same road and map it out when somebody’s already been down it and made it a motorway? So, you know, you can whip down, you can bypass all the hurdles, because people have already done them for you. And then you can start finding hurdles further down that you can attack and, and progress on with.

But I would advise people really to get involved, you know, get out there, find out what’s available both in your local community – we’re members of the local carers’ association, we’re members of the Motor Neurone Disease Association and the Oxford branch of the carers’ association, and we get involved in everything that we can, because it helps certainly me come to terms with what’s going on within me. Secondly I can feel that I’m helping other people as well as myself. And it gives Janet the fact that – my wife – that she’s not isolated. There are people she can turn to, people she can talk to that understand and know what, what she’s going through. And that’s very important.

And as I say, if I sort of sum up with anything it would be, ‘Get involved, embrace it, get involved, become members of the carers’ associations. They’re so much help, they really are. And I’ve never belonged to anything like that in my life, neither has Janet. We’ve always gone our own way and done our own thing. But on this you need help, you can’t cope with it on your own. It’s too big. There’s too many things that you need, and you need to know about. And if you try to do it independently you’ll miss out on so much.

And so far I’ve managed to, to try and keep going and feel a positive attitude. But it is hard when you already know what’s coming. And often doctors, because I’ve already lived with MND, are quick to introduce me to other patients, especially in the early days, and think, ‘Oh, Liz knows what to expect and Lizll be all right. And often I wasn’t all right, in the early days. I didn’t really want to see other people, because it was a constant reminder of what was to come for me and what I’d already seen first-hand from family members. But as time’s worn on I’ve seen that as a positive role and I do now meet quite a lot of people with MND. And it is hard meeting somebody who can’t move or speak. And I think that’s one of my biggest fears, that I will lose the power of speech. I think I could handle other things being taken away, but to not be able to communicate is actually one of the most terrifying things.

I trained as a visitor in 2004. Because I kind of, I’d made the decision to leave work and I was thinking, ‘There’s a long winter ahead. And that was one of the other things about leaving.

It was becoming harder and harder to physically get to work. If there was ice on the floor and the car needed, I couldn’t scrape the windscreen, so I had to sit for hours. [microphone interference] And then as I was, I made the decision to leave, I saw on the Association website that they were looking for Association visitors. And so I rang up and asked had they had anybody with MND be a visitor before? And if not, why not, kind of – could I? And they said that, no, they hadn’t, but there was no reason why I shouldn’t be allowed to do it. But I’d have to go through their interview process and, and do the, the training, which was over six months. And then I can do it. But really I was doing, it was the sort of thing I was doing anyway. It just made it more official, and hopefully made people aware that there is a local branch and there is head office and there is support, that they’re not alone.

You see I was fortunate – or unfortunate – but because it’s in the family I was already receiving Thumbprint [magazine] from head office. I joined anyway because of my sister. So I already knew what was available and, and where to go for help. But a lot of people who are newly diagnosed often don’t, or choose not to. And also a lot of them don’t want an Association visitor or any formal contact. But one of the things I can do is, because I’ve got MND and I am an Association visitor, people will often come and talk to me because I’ve got the illness, rather than because I’m – I’ve got like two heads. And I don’t see – I see myself as, more as just a friend. And if I can help them, put them in touch with anybody that they need, then all well and good. But if they don’t want any contact, that, I have to respect that as well.

We talked to the Motor Neurone Association at an early stage when the first diagnosis came through, and all they could offer at that stage was a group support meeting for Olivia to go to, and that was just not what was needed because this wasn’t a long term, well we didn’t know what it was at the time. But it was the last thing Olivia wanted to do, to go and talk about it with other people. Now that in many other forms of motor neurone disease would probably be a very good thing to do, and for carers but it wasn’t right for us, in this particular version of motor neurone disease because it was all happening so quickly. And others, perhaps even those that had the disease would not understand because this was a one-off in their experience. So that sort of support group, not relevant for this sort of motor neurone disease.

Well, I went to this lunch. I’ll tell you about the guy I met first of all. Lovely chap, 43, diagnosed with MND, very sad, family, 12-year-old son. And he and I got on very well, because he was a builder and he’d moved into a bungalow and was doing all the building himself. I said, ‘Oh, so whos doing the building?’ He said, ‘I’m a builder. And I said, ‘Yeah, but you’ve got MND. And he said, ‘So?’ So a man very much after my own heart. And he said to me, ‘Do you find your toes curl over?’ And I said, ‘Yes. But you can do this and this. So I managed to impart some information to him. Anyway we met at this MND lunch. And the lunch had about forty people at it, and out of the forty people, eight of them were motor neurone disease sufferers. So to me everybody else was a hanger-on. Now it’s not their fault, because I think a lot of them are spouses of people whove had motor neurone disease and died, and they sort of got into the sort of swing of going to the, but it’s like they all pat each other on the back, and I, I don’t know what they’re doing for anybody.

We went to this lunch, and what did it do for me? All right, I met other people who have motor neurone disease. Do I really want to do that? Because there were people there who were quite badly affected. Do I really want to see what I could end up like, and have everyone patting each other on the back? And holding raffles, the proceeds of which were paid for by myself and my partner and other people and their – you know. So we were all paying the money into the – it just, the whole thing just seems pretty ridiculous. And I’m not really sure where, where the whole thing’s going. I just feel as if it is a self-help group for, for spouses of people whove died of motor neurone disease.

So it would be better if they had some targeted meetings that were for people with the condition, and maybe something separate for friends and family?

Well, I just don’t know. I’m trying, I’ve been trying to work out what would be a better format. But I can’t believe that having a lunch that’s – I’m not sure who paid for it. I think it was partially paid for by the place we were at and partially paid for by the Motor Neurone Disease Association. And if that’s the case, I’d rather the money was spent on research than having a Christmas lunch. And I’m not really sure what’s the best way to go. But I’m sure that isn’t the best way to go. I’m sure as hell it isn’t [laughs].

Yeah, I mean, the Internet anyway is, is useful, you know, and being able to use things like Messenger. Because, you know, obviously with Mike not being able to speak now, his communication with, with family and friends can be done via that, you know, so he can have live chats with, with people. Which we’ve found invaluable, haven’t we? And wanting to find out information about motor neurone and what’s around and what research is going on, we came across the BUILD UK website, which we found very useful. However, there’s a new website, a newish website, called PatientsLikeMe, which is brilliant. Because in essence what you do is you put your profile up and in it you record the treatments, the symptoms, the treatments, how long you’ve had it, and all that sort of stuff. And other patients obviously do the same thing. So it gives you the opportunity to, to find out other patients that are in the same, probably the same onset as you are, i.e. bulbar, and the same symptoms using different drugs or different supplements and whatever. And it gives you the opportunity to actually communicate with them about what they’re using and how useful that is. So that’s been invaluable as well, you know.

And I had to distance myself a couple of months ago because I got so involved with MND that I felt that I was becoming, that was my personality and my person. I was becoming a person with MND rather than the person I am that happens to have MND on the way. So I’ve deliberately distanced myself from a website that I used to go on to which is excellent, it’s for people with MND and carers that they can talk to one another and give advice. And it is really, really excellent and I will go back to it but at the point I’ve just stopped going on there. Stopped sort of looking into alternative therapies and just thinking that I need to find, rediscover me and what I was like to begin with. But I will go back to it but I just think I need that distance and that space at the moment. So we all deal with it differently. We all have good times. We all have bad times and I think when you’re on the bad, when you’re having a bad time you’ve got to try and discover the best way to get through it. And what best way is for you might not be a best way for someone else. You’ve got to just think what is good for you and what helps you. So that’s what I’m doing at the moment [laugh].

And is that how you deal with bad times by distancing?

From that and pulling on the strength of my family and friends. I used to be scared to tell my family when I’m having a bad time or particularly upset because I, obviously they’re very upset as well and I didn’t want to upset them any more. But I find that they actually like it when I say, ‘I need your help or ‘I’m feeling down’ or ‘depressed’ because they feel that they can actually do something to help me. And the way we do it is they just take me out and about and get me out of the house and, you know, just socialise with me. And it’s amazing how being. I mean it’s a big difference to your mental health and how you’re feeling as well. And then you can get that you, I just feel I can draw strength from them to help me deal with my illness.

Is that the BUILD site you were talking about?

Yeah, yeah, the UK BUILD is excellent yeah.

That’s a very active site. The people who are on it use it quite a lot don’t they.

Yeah they do, yeah. I used to be a regular on there but they obviously have noticed I haven’t been on there because I’ve had a message from one of the other regulars saying to contact him because they haven’t heard from me for a while which is nice as well. Yeah.

I was going to ask you if you’d got in contact with any other people who have MND, if that was something you wanted to do?

I haven’t met them face to face. It’s quite difficult really because you’re quite widespread but often through BUILD you’ll just start e-mailing each other through your personal e-mails. There’s a gentleman I, who I’ve been corresponding with whos just recently moved into the area that I live in with MND. So we’ve been talking via e-mail and we sort of talked about meeting up but at the end of the day if you, if you’ve only got MND in common it’s quite nerve wracking meeting up with them because you’re thinking will we have anything else in common or [laugh].

And also it’s a, it’s a two-way thing. It’s quite worrying. You like the support you have helping one another but you’re scared that. I think, well I’m personally scared that if I met up with someone face-face and we started meeting up that if they needed to become reliant on me or to talk to me about their problems with MND that I wouldn’t be strong enough for that. I mean it might not be the case that they would do that but you don’t know. So Ithink to. I like having the e-mail contact but I don’t think I would want personal contact with someone else with MND because I think it gets too involved then. Often on UK BUILD you’ll find someone else whos just died who was a regular contributor and that’s really upsetting. And that’s just knowing them from talking to them on the website so I think it would be even more disturbing if you actually built up a closer relationship with someone. So I keep my distance a bit.