Major health update on AFL legend Neale Daniher as his daughter opens up about star’s battle with terminal illness
BEC Daniher has given a major update on her father Neale’s condition in a candid interview with “Let’s Talk.”
Australian Football League legend Neale Daniher is one of four brothers who make up the Daniher dynasty, and has become the face of the fight against Motor Neuron Disease.
The former Essendon player and Melbourne football club coach Neale was diagnosed with the degenerative disease in 2013.
Ten years on from his diagnosis, Bec revealed her dad has continued to defy the odds, even as his condition is recently worsening.
She told host Hamish McLachlan: “He’s been able to defy the odds, but the odds are turning around a little bit now.
“Dad can’t talk anymore. It’s so much more real, that presence of death, than it ever has been… I can feel it creeping and getting closer.”
Neale has far exceeded the estimated time frame of life after diagnosis – by nearly eight years.
She continued: “Witnessing and watching dad go through it has been hard and it can be so hopeless. but we’ve rallied together as a family to take back control where we can.
“You take time for family. Family is number one.”
After his shock diagnosis, Neale dedicated his life to fighting to find a cure for MND.
Neale co-founded “Fight MND“, an organisation which looks to find effective treatments and a cure for the disease.
Their website explained: “The horrible and debilitating disease gradually takes away the patient’s use of their arms and legs, their ability to eat and swallow, their speech and ultimately their ability to breathe…all in an average timeframe of just 27 months.”
The disease affects two groups of motor neurons within the central nervous system that are involved in the initiation of muscle contraction and movement.
MND is also known as ALS, or Lou Gehrig’s disease in the United States, named after the legendary baseball player who died from it.
There is no known cure for the killer disease, though a drug treatment has been approved to help delay progression.
Since 2017, Fight MND has raised more than $10.45million AUD to aide in research against the brutal disease.