I first heard about her last year when I was on my neurology placement. All the other students were visiting the lady with pink hair on the other side of the ward as she had just arrived with a tremor and problems with her balance. I decided that I didn’t want to pester the woman who looked slightly older than myself and had already entertained numerous hoards of white-coated students who’d she’d allowed to carry out the neurology examination so often that she corrected them as they forgot which cranial nerve came next!

The other students raved about how friendly this lady was and told me about her young daughter who visited daily with her granny but no-one really knew what was wrong with the little girl’s mother. To be honest I never really thought anymore about her, I suppose I just presumed she’d get better and realistically I didn’t think I’d ever come across her again.

A small child with pink hair was slumped lying fast asleep in front of the telly when we entered the lounge, little did I know that the waif-like figure was actually not a small child at all, it was Ann*, one year later.

I can’t really describe how I felt.

There she was, once the friendly lady with a tremor, now small and child-like, unable to move her little arms or legs, no longer able to produce any words just a baby-like moan, completely lost to the world of real communication. Was this really her I thought?

Occasionally there was a short-lived smile and her flickering eyes seemed to follow me around the room as if she realised I was a stranger. As we spoke gently about the latest plan, she seemed to be trying to listen and at times trying to respond but it was hard to say whether she was still ‘there’, whether she was desperately trying to tell us something, desperately wanting to have her say we’ll never know I guess.

This figure was once so independent. She was enjoying motherhood and living in her flat. The tremor was the first sign of the disease that in one short year had taken over her whole body and was accelerating her towards the end. Her independence is now fully gone, her personality striped from her and her old life ended, her ability to care or even communicate with her daughter has been taken from her now. Her disease spreads quickly and kills from the inside out.

A year on and the pink hair still proves it’s Ann, but only in body. Where has the old Ann actually gone?

No-one knows how much longer Ann has left. She’s made plans for her son; she’s chosen the songs for her funeral, and she definitely wants to keep her pink hair! Although she hasn’t quite waved goodbye to her family she’s almost there, and all in less than 365 days.

So sad, so young and a mother of a little girl who has watched her mummy deteriorate in front of her eyes. How can she possibly understand? – the centre of her world is rapidly disappearing. Soon her mother will be gone forever.