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Search forAlastair Hignell: How MS has changed by life
Wednesday, August 27, 2008, 08:00
The date was January 8, 1999.
"You don't forget a date like that," he says.
Many might have wallowed in despair. Alastair, though, had a rugby game to cover for BBC Radio Five Live that weekend. Then he went home. Alone.
"My wife Jeannie was away working at the time so I had this news all to myself for a weekend," he recalls.
"So, when I got back after covering the game, I read up as much as I could about MS, and sort of plodded on until Jeannie returned.
"I met her at the front door with a bunch of flowers and said 'I've got some news for you...'
"I remember her saying 'It's not your MS, it's OURS'."
More than nine years on Alastair has finally had to retire from radio.
"I just knew I couldn't do the demanding job the way I had done it and the way it should be done," he said.
"I knew that when you get to a big event, like the World Cup, say, you have to be on the road for seven weeks, 24 hours a day, and you can get called on at any time. I just found I didn't have enough reserves of energy to do that."
He called it a day on May 31 this year, covering the Guinness Premiership final between Wasps and Leicester.
"I had made the decision after the World Cup and wanted to come to a nice climactic finish."
As any English rugby fan will know, his final game was very special. Laurence Dallaglio, triumphant as captain of the winning Wasps side, paid tribute to Alastair's indomitable spirit by dedicating the game to him.
Reflecting on that moment, Alastair said: "The occasion was emotional enough without that. I was joking with Laurence before the game and he knew it was my last game. I am still amazed he should say the things he did.
"When I realised I had got the progressive form of MS I spoke to my boss at the BBC and asked what was the best thing to do. The best way was deemed to be to take medical retirement.
"I want to do some work, though, and I am overjoyed that I have got this new column. It will give me something to get my teeth into.
"I would like to move into the field of motivational speaking, examining life-changing experiences, seeing how my own experience can be relevant in other spheres. I am also looking at the idea of an autobiography."
Alastair is 52. He and Jeannie have two sons, Adam, 26, and Dan, 25.
Sitting in the garden of their home, overlooking a panoramic sweep of the Stroud valleys, we go over old ground. He talks with a passion about the illness.
"I underwent a hip operation in 1997 and was attempting to get back in trim but was concerned about my right leg, I had something called 'foot drop'. It didn't lift up and didn't quite work. There were problems with my finger and thumb, too, no feeling.
"Then I had a problem with the arm wobbling. I couldn't keep the microphone still. I spilled wine on the carpet."
A succession of tests took place, ending with an MRI scan. It was after that one Alastair heard the first mention of multiple sclerosis.
"A specialist said to me that I'd 'probably' got it. I had sort of heard about it and thought it didn't strike at people so much who were over 40 and sort of contented myself with that. I had a cousin who had MS but who had then remained clear of attacks. However, the wife of a very good friend had MS and died."
At this point in our conversation Alastair emphasises that "you don't die from MS, you die with MS!"
How has it progressed?
"For the vast majority of people it's a case of relapse and remitting with the disease. You have an attack when something goes wrong, a fairly severe bunch of symptoms which knocks you flat and you take to your bed. Then you recover about 95 per cent.
"The worst kind is the primary progressive when you are on a steep slope of decline. I am on secondary progressive which means I'm on a slope of decline but I try to make it as gentle a slope as possible and not go down at any great rate.
"But I am gradually getting worse. For example, with the energy levels which forced me to give up my job. I don't have as much energy resilience, reserves of stamina, to do the job as I wanted to do it.
"My initial reaction back in 1999 was 'I am going to get fitter, stronger and beat this thing' but it was a bit more implacable than that.
"I can't now do a lot of things I could back then. I am finding it very difficult to walk any distance, climb stairs, write with my right hand (I am right handed). I'm on a slope that's gone downhill.
"I've got used to using a stick (I didn't use one before 2001), then the mobility scooter. I have three different sorts of those, including the off-road Ferrari," he laughs.
"I have got used to using different things to help me physically because I am worse than I was. My right arm and right leg don't work very well but I am having lots of phsyio and using things like the 'Power Plate,' a vibration exercise machine which does me a lot of good.
Initially Alastair was told there was a drug, Beta Interferon, which modifies the disease – nothing cures it. But health officials were reluctant, because of the postcode lottery, to give it him. Eventually he had to pay privately to obtain it.
He said: "I took it for about two years, a quite painful injection three times a week. The side effects were awful. It felt as if I had flu three times a week and felt terrible, I plugged away thinking it may do me some good but it was making my life a misery, so I stopped and took more of a self-help route, upping the physio."
That's when he availed himself of the treatments available at the MS Centre in Nailsea. At the time he lived in Bristol.
"I went to Nailsea every Monday for five years and gradually got to manage my symptoms, used their oxygen chamber, the physio, aromatherapy. The combination of all those treatments made a bit of a difference and enabled me to do the job as long as I did.
"Since moving to Stroud there's not quite the same facilities so what I am doing now is go to Phsyability, a treatment centre here for nerve damaged patients and we do exercising and massaging. But the Power Plate is also terrific for me, two or three sessions a week help me feel much better, and help with balance and coordination."
A decade on, Alastair has a view about his illness which many might find surprising.
"I owe an awful lot to MS," he says.
"Yes, people might find that surprising, but I've met some fantastic people and been exposed to some extraordinary amounts of generosity, goodness and kindness. A great love, if you like, amongst people. That's something that, maybe, if I'd been plugging along in the rat race, being a journalist and trying to get to the top of my job, I might not have been exposed to. It has made me learn a lot of things about myself as well.
"Initially you find yourself being incredibly competitive in fighting the disease.
"You are in denial, feel guilty and you expend a lot of energy on negative stuff.
"It has been an interesting personal journey to get beyond that and it's been accepting I have got something I am going to have for the rest of my life, then working out ways of living with it and making it work for me."
Is Alastair Hignell saying he's a better bloke for having MS?
"Yes, definitely. It has opened me up a lot more. My upbringing was very public school and I was not a very openly emotional person.
"I am now more in touch with my feelings."
Watch out for Alastair Hignell's column later this week.
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