Val Mawson lost her battle with Motor Neurone Disease (also known as ALS) during the morning of 25th July 2017 at Derby Royal Hospital.

She'd been exhibiting symptoms of the condition for around 20 months but believed them to be the result of a minor stroke or tiredness from looking after her very ill husband until he died in January 2017.

She was finally diagnosed with MND only 9 weeks before it took her life. The decline was rapid and heartbreaking for her and all her friends and family, not least her devoted daughter Fiona.

Although she eventually died peacefully with her family around her, she was only 78 and had hoped to reach 80 before the inevitable happened. She was still coming to terms with the death of her husband and Fiona's father only 7 months before, but was looking forward to re-building her life and enjoying many more years of retirement before receiving the devastating results of neurological tests.

Even so, she took her diagnosis with characteristic stoicism and never complained about the cruel blow fate had dealt her.

On the day she died she was being discharged from hospital after having minor surgery to fit a feeding tube, and was due to move to a nursing home near to Fiona to spend her last days with those closest to her. Sadly, the condition rapidly and unexpectedly overtook events and she never left the ward.

She had a peaceful death but a premature one, caused by a disease that has no respect for age, sex or lifestyle. It comes without warning, bringing either a relatively quick demise, as it did with Val, or a long drawn out decline during which it robs sufferers of basic functions such as eating, drinking, talking, walking and ultimately breathing.

There have been many famous sufferers of MND or ALS, including Stephen Hawking and David Niven, yet it's a relatively rare condition and there is very little in the way of research that has pinpointed how or why it strikes. There is virtually no treatment and absolutely no cure. Help is needed to change that and to give more hope and assistance to those who are struck down by this awful affliction.

As it's such a rare condition, funding for treatment, palliative care and support is often patchy or in some cases completely absent. The Motor Neurone Disease Association not only supports research into treatment, they also campaign to raise awareness of the disease and provide invaluable practical and emotional support for sufferers and their carers as well as training and helping to finance specialist MND nurses and care units within the NHS.

Fiona Mawson and Ian Middleton