I was here.

A strange thing happens when you think you may have a fatal illness. All the silly things you ever thought were important melt away and your left with only a handful that you find are truly important.

It sounds like Hollywood dross, like the overly dramatic end of American Beauty, but as of a few weeks ago I came to realise it was all too true.

But before we get into that, maybe I should introduce myself.

My name is Il-Sung Sato. At the time of writing this (August 2019) I'm 32, blessed with an amazing wife who I'm convinced, after over 10 years together, is my soul mate (otherwise how could she put up with me :P?), and an amazing son who will turn 1 in approximately 2 weeks.

They are my absolute everything. I want to spend the rest of my days with them - telling my wife just how amazing she is, my son just how much he changed me, and tell both of them that they are both perfect just the way they are.

Sadly, I may have MND (ALS), a fatal neurological disease that puts my life expectancy at anywhere between 3 months to 10 years.

Motor neuron diseases aren't very well understood, and are almost always fatal - despite what the absolute legend Stephen Hawking would have you believe.

Currently I am awaiting diagnosis for an increasingly worrying set of symptoms. It is a strange thing to hope for that you just have 'a life long disability' but when the alternative is an average 3 year lifespan which ends is slow suffocation or near constant pneumonia, you'll take any small hope you can get.

I frequently find myself up at night thinking 'god, please let this be MS' (not to denigrate the challenges of people with MS).