Memories help Frank through the dark days

Even though he had just been diagnosed with MND, Frank came back to Scotland for his son’s wedding.

COMING home from Australia for their son’s wedding should have been a joyous occasion for Frank and Rae Lyons.

And while Francis’s big day was a great one, Frank also had some devastating news to pass on.

Just before he flew to Scotland, the 63-year-old’s doctor told him he had Motor Neurone Disease.

“My doctor later admitted he nearly didn’t tell me before we left,” Frank said.

“But confirming the diagnosis gave me the chance to tell my children. It was such a struggle.

“We didn’t tell anyone else until after the wedding, but many friends could see there was something wrong.”

That was in September 2014, but Rae had spotted something not quite right with her husband almost a year before.

“She first noticed my speech slurring in late 2013 and I was having difficulty swallowing,” Frank continued.

“Soon afterwards a neurologist told me I had taken a minor stroke. I saw a speech therapist but after several months there was no improvement and I also started to lose weight.”

He was referred to the Brain and Mind Institute at the University of Sydney.

Rae said: “I knew Frank was ill. I thought it might be Parkinson’s disease or Multiple Sclerosis. I never thought it could be MND – it was a shock.”

The couple had moved to Australia seven years prior to the diagnosis. Frank’s sister had moved there in 1981 and his daughter, Ruth, in 2006, so he always planned on going there.

When the opportunity came up to work in Sydney – where he was an executive manager in the housing association sector – he and Rae decided to make the move.

They didn’t expect to stay as long as they did, so the diagnosis triggered their decision to come home. Frank retired in January last year and returned to Hamilton, Lanarkshire, in April. “After the diagnosis the only thing I could think of was that most people with MND last between two and five years,” Frank admitted. “I felt like giving up.

“My wife and I had never experienced a major illness and there’s nothing I can do to get back to how I was.

“The deterioration of my speech, combined with my difficulty swallowing, lack of appetite and large weight loss, at times makes me question, ‘Why am I doing this?’. Nothing will make me better.”

The illness has been a testing time for all the family, but Frank reached out to MND Scotland for support and the charity has been a great help.

He added: “I’m normally a positive person and you can’t just sit in the dark the entire time, but there are dark days.

“Although it’s been an extremely difficult journey I am more positive than I was and have settled back into life in my homeland. I have a terminal illness for which there is, at this stage, no cure. I have to deal with it but I’m trying to do it my own way.

“My life is at an end, but it has been a good one.”

For more information about MND Scotland, visit mndscotland.org.uk