Facing death

Date Published: 28-Jun-2007

AT 35, Elaine O’Leary should be looking forward to the best days of a long life ahead – instead she is living with the reality of Motor Neuron Disease, a debilitating illness that leaves her hospitalised in a wheelchair and staring death in the face.

And yet remarkably for a woman so close to her own mortality, she is full of life – if anything she thinks that her illness has improved the day to day quality of her existence.

The mother of a seven year old boy, she is unable to look after herself without the help of others – but this doesn’t seem to phase her.

“The fact that you’re disabled and in a wheelchair and can’t brush your own hair, so what. That doesn’t make you the person you are.”

For many people this may seem strange, but Elaine maintains that her quality of life has improved since she got confirmed with MND. “It has gone up ten fold, it has definitely skyrocketed”.

“Before I got sick, I was cleaning, cooking and running around with Andrew. At the end of everyday I would go to bed and get up the following morning and do the same again. Since I got this all that is gone and so is all the stress of that.”

The Mayo woman has spent the last six weeks in……….