Peter Chambers
Greg speaks with Motor Neurone Disease champion, Peter Chambers. For many, the MND journey can be a rollercoaster and for Peter Chambers, his journey was no different. Pete had symptoms for around 18-months leading into his diagnosis in December 2019. And as he explains, no stone was left unturned when investigating the cause of his symptoms. “There were three or four things the neurologists were looking at and had to exclude. MND was always in the background, but it was never the likely diagnosis during that 18-month period,” he says. “When it was finally diagnosed as MND, there were tears, but it didn’t come as a complete and utter shock. I was kind of prepared for it, but when you hear those words, it’s not what you want to hear”. Not wanting his diagnosis to define him, Pete has used it as the catalyst for his positive mindset and desire to help others. “I wanted a legacy that is not negative. There’s no way I want people to look at me and remember me as being someone who couldn’t cope with this.”
PODCASTS: www.thelastpostmagazine.com/tlp-interviews
Greg T Ross: It’s a pleasure meeting you, Peter Chambers and thanks for joining us here at The Last Post. I know little about MND and motor neuron disease. I’m just wondering, what’s your story and what can you tell us about what’s happening? Peter Chambers: Yeah, look I’m same as you, Greg. I knew bugger all about it as well. I suppose, in Melbourne you might be a little bit different in the rest of the country, but we’re very AFL centric here, so we had Neale Daniher, starting a massive cause, which is just wonderful in terms of raising awareness of the disease and doing a hell of a lot for raising money for research. But I think without Neale, and again, in the Melbourne environment, I don’t think we’d know too much about it as well. GTR: And Neale contracted motor neuron disease, what, 10 years ago or something? PC: Yeah, I think seven or eight, from what I understand. Yeah. GTR: He’s done remarkably well. PC: Oh, it’s extraordinary, what he’s done, absolutely extraordinary. So yeah, I think I’d be in the same camp as you, mate, that I wouldn’t have known too much about it prior too. So yeah. Look, my story is, I suppose with hindsight, this is a very much a hindsight thing. My first symptoms, probably as early as 2016, just little things, my arms were starting to get a bit weak and my hands would starting to get a bit weak. So, 2016 I started getting these symptoms and just a little feeling something was wrong. So I ended up having some spinal surgery in 2018 and that was to decompress the spine and all sorts of things, which was in theory supposed to be the answer. It turned out it wasn’t, and I actually regressed as a consequence of that
86 THE LAST POST – 2021 TENTH BIRTHDAY EDITION
surgery to the point where I lost most of the use of my right arm from that point on. And then spent a pretty agonizing 18 months or so. Unfortunately, it’s one of those diseases where you don’t identify it. It’s a process of exclusion, where you look under every rock that you can look under and when there’s no more rocks, you’re left with MND, which that makes it tough, because that would have been an 18 month process, and depending on the stage that you’re at, it’s not inconsistent to have that sort of time lag before you get diagnosed. So, the version I’ve got is called flail arm, which as the name suggests, is attacking my arms. The nerve cells basically die, and they support the muscles and it really just kills the muscles. So my version is flail arm, and it’s seen as a slow progression. I’ve heard cases where it can take you literally in months and you see a lot of cases that are a lot worse than what I am at the moment. So yeah. So that’s the very brief background there. GTR: That’s all right. Thank you, Peter, for sharing that with us. And I was just wondering, what was your life like before, and what were you doing when you discovered this? PC: Yeah, so I’ve had a career in banking, so I’m 59, Greg. Had a career in banking, had some pretty senior roles, and doing some good things. And it’s an industry I enjoyed, not the most exciting industry going around, and not a conversation starter at a barbecue, but I’ve moved on from that. Avoid the banker over there. But, no, I had a good life there. I finished work in probably early-ish in 2019. And yeah, look, I hadn’t been diagnosed at that stage, but one of the factors of MND is the fatigue just really gets you. And I got to the point where, if I did that process in the morning of getting up, having a shower, having a shave, getting dressed, having breakfast, and I’m back to bed at that point. I’ve got no energy left at all. So
