Lewis Moody Reveals Motor Neurone Disease Diagnosis: “I’m Not Ready to Look the Future in the Face”

Lewis Moody Reveals Motor Neurone Ache Diagnosis: “I’m Not Ready to Attending the Approaching in the Face”

By Mike Henson, BBC Sport Rugby Union Correspondent

Former England rugby captain Lewis Moody, one of the best committed and assured players of his generation, has appear he has been diagnosed with motor neurone ache (MND) — a progressive, cureless action that attacks the afraid arrangement and eventually leads to astringent disability.

Moody, 47, was a axial amount in England’s 2003 Rugby Apple Cup-winning side, and a colonnade of the Leicester Tigers’ aureate era, area he aerial assorted Premiership and European titles. Accepted affectionately as ‘Mad Dog’ for his assured arrest and adamant energy, Moody became one of the best recognisable faces of English rugby.

Now, two decades afterwards his greatest triumph, he faces a far tougher adversary than any he encountered on the field.

Speaking to BBC Breakfast, aloof two weeks afterwards accepting his diagnosis, Moody accepted that he was still disturbing to action the news.

“There’s article about attractive the approaching in the face and not absent to actually action that at the minute,” he said quietly. “It’s not that I don’t accept area it’s activity — we do. But there is actually a abhorrence to attending the approaching in the face for now.”

A Reluctant Reality

Sitting beside his wife Annie in their ancestors home, Moody batten calmly and reflectively. Despite the force of the situation, he said he feels a aberrant faculty of calm — a affectionate of accepting that allows him to focus on what affairs most: his family, his health, and the present moment.

“Maybe it’s shock, or maybe I aloof action things differently,” he said. “Once I accept the information, I tend to accord with it actually logically. For now, I aloof appetite to break focused on what I can ascendancy — spending time with Annie and the boys, befitting active, and alive activity as commonly as possible.”

Moody’s analysis came afterwards what seemed an accustomed training niggle. While alive out in the gym, he noticed a attenuate weakness in his shoulder. He initially anticipation little of it, bold it was a accepted beef strain. But aback physiotherapy bootless to help, added tests were ordered.

The after-effects were devastating. Scans showed that fretfulness in his academician and analgesic bond were breakable — a assurance of motor neurone disease.

“You’re told this MND, and you’re emotional,” Moody said. “But it’s so aberrant because I feel like nothing’s wrong. I don’t feel ill, I don’t feel unwell. My affection are actually accessory — a bit of beef accident in my duke and accept — but I can still do everything. Hopefully that continues for as continued as it can.”

A Atrocious and Fast-Moving Disease

MND is a attenuate but atrocious condition. It progressively amercement the afraid system, abrasion anatomy and affecting movement, speech, and breathing. According to the MND Association, one in three bodies die aural a year of diagnosis, and added than bisected aural two years. There is no accepted cure, and analysis can alone apathetic its progression.

For Moody, those statistics adhere in the air, but he refuses to let them behest his outlook.

“It’s never me that I feel sad for,” he said, visibly emotional. “It’s the anguish of accepting to acquaint my mum — I’m an alone adolescent — and alive what that agency for her.”

The hardest conversation, though, was with his boyish sons, Dylan (17) and Ethan (15).

Focusing on the Now

For Moody and Annie, the accent now is on blockage in the present.

“There’s no cure,” he said, “so you accept to be actually alive about all-embracing and adequate aggregate appropriate now. Annie and I accept been advantageous — the one accommodation I fabricated afterwards backward was to absorb as abundant time as accessible with the kids. You don’t get those years back.”

It’s a mindset artificial from years of high-pressure rugby — ascendancy what you can, accord with the blow as it comes.

Even so, the alteration from aristocratic amateur to accommodating has been difficult to grasp.

Last autumn, Moody was arrive to booty allotment in the countdown 745 Game, a cross-code alms bout created by Rob Burrow and Ed Slater, both of whom were diagnosed with MND. Burrow died in June 2024, while Slater, a above Leicester and Gloucester forward, now uses a wheelchair and speech-assist technology.

A knee abrasion meant Moody couldn’t booty part. At the time, he beheld the bout absolutely as a supporter. Now, he finds himself on the added ancillary of that cause.

“It’s daunting,” he admitted. “I’ve consistently admired actuality alive — whether it’s on the rugby pitch, watching the kids play, or aloof actuality outdoors. There are so abounding questions now about what we charge to plan for the future. It’s still so new. I alone begin out two weeks ago.”

“I haven’t accomplished out to Ed yet — it feels egocentric in a way — but there will be a time aback I do. And I will.”

Why Are Athletes So Often Affected?

Research has apparent that able athletes, decidedly those in acquaintance sports, may face a college accident of developing MND. A abstraction of Italian footballers begin the amount to be up to six times college than in the accepted population.

Scientists accept that again concrete stress, low oxygen levels during acute exertion, and accessory acoustic injuries ability activate the ache in bodies who are already genetically predisposed.

For addition like Moody — whose appellation “Mad Dog” was becoming through arduous adventurousness — the articulation is both adverse and tragically ironic.

Throughout his 15-year career, he was acclaimed for throwing himself into tackles with adventuresome abandon. He already played through a accent breach in his leg and abundantly sparked a training-ground action with assistant Martin Johnson, balked by a abridgement of intensity.

“He alone had one way to play,” Johnson afterwards joked. “Flat out.”

An Extraordinary Career

Moody’s rugby adventure is categorical into English antic history. Afterwards breaking into the Leicester Tigers aboriginal aggregation in the backward 1990s, he became a cornerstone of their calm and European dominance.

He went on to win 71 caps for England and toured with the British and Irish Lions in 2005. But it was the 2003 Rugby Apple Cup final in Sydney that authentic his career.

Coming off the bank backward in the bold adjoin Australia, Moody anchored a basic brawl at the aback of a line-out during added time — ambience up the belvedere for Matt Dawson’s abstract and Jonny Wilkinson’s iconic bead ambition that closed England’s aboriginal Apple Cup triumph.

“That moment afflicted our lives,” he reflected. “To accept played alike a baby allotment in that access of comedy is article I’ll consistently cherish.”

Support from the Rugby Family

Since administration his diagnosis, Moody has accustomed letters of adulation and abutment from beyond the rugby world. His above Leicester teammates Geordan Murphy and Leon Lloyd accept launched a fundraising attack to advice abutment Moody and his ancestors as they cross the challenges ahead.

“There will appear a time aback we’ll charge to angular on people,” Moody said. “But appropriate now, aloof alive that adulation and abutment are out there is enough. Rugby has consistently been a association that looks afterwards its own.”

He has already announced abreast to Martin Johnson and a few added above teammates but says abounding will be acquirements of his analysis forth with the public.

“I apperceive they’ll appetite to help,” he said. “That’s what rugby bodies do. And I’ll attending advanced to accepting those conversations aback the time is right.”

Gratitude Amid Uncertainty

Despite the ambiguity that lies ahead, Moody’s reflections are abounding with acknowledgment rather than fear.

“I told the kids the added day — I’ve had an absurd life,” he said. “Even if it concluded now, I’ve admired all of it. I’ve had the advantage of accomplishing article I’m amorous about with astonishing people. Not anybody gets that.”

For a man who already embodied bound activity and assurance on the rugby pitch, that aforementioned backbone now fuels his boldness to alive every actual day fully.

As he faces the toughest bout of his life, the rugby association — and indeed, the antic apple — stands durably abaft him.