After being diagnosed with MS, Bec Duncan has made what she describes as an “easy decision” to donate her brain to a brain bank to aid research.
“It was a pretty straightforward decision for me because no one can use it. I do understand that I’m pro-organ donation and that other people may have questions or concerns that they would prefer to think about more carefully. But, for me, it was a really easy decision.”
“I guess I’ve got a personal interest in that I have three daughters, who I hope don’t get MS and I hope they lead healthy lives. More broadly it’s just to help anyone in the future because if researchers don’t have those donations then they can’t make the progress that everyone needs them to make,” said Bec.
Once diagnosed with MS, Bec was no longer able to donate blood. It was from there, she began the process of organising the donation of her brain. Bec explained what it means for her moving forward.
“There is a card that you hold onto so that if you’re in an accident the ambos can see that with your medicare card.”
“From there they need it fairly quickly to go to the researchers and there they do lots of different things. Observations, but they’re also trying to work on cures and they need comparable control brains, so a healthy brain to compare against. It’s just really about getting the word out because everyone can donate their brain. I suppose it’s not an organ you can give to other people when you go to the other side.”
Being diagnosed with MS is often a complicated and long, drawn-out process. For Bec, it meant that her diagnosis provided a sense of relief by the time her MS was confirmed.
“Lots of people describe their challenges in getting diagnosed with a lot of diseases, but particularly MS because it does present in a different way in every person. In the MS community you’ll often hear stories of people with symptoms for a couple of years or ten years or even twenty years.”
“It is difficult to get, but for me, once I got that diagnosis confirmed by an MRI after about four or five years of going through that difficult diagnostic process, I was just relieved. I was actually happy because it finally gave a name to what I had been experiencing.”
“Once I got that MS diagnosis, everything kicked in and I could get the medication, I could get
assistance from MS Australia, and MS support groups. All of that became accessible to me, which was not prior to that diagnosis.”
“Finally I had this acknowledgement of what I was going through because there was a time there where I thought it might all be in my head because nothing was showing up on blood tests or other tests,” she said.
Bec’s optimism and selflessness are incredibly admirable. Who knows, her brain one day might be the brain that helps them find the source of or cure for MS.
Max O’Driscoll
