Hi there, my name is Matt Smith and I am raising funds for my friends, Tasch and Matt Loadsman.

In January 2020 Tasch was diagnosed with Motor Neurone Disease (MND) following a few months of subtle signs and symptoms that she simply put down to a bit of pain from trail running, park runs and netball.

Since her diagnosis, Tasch’s condition has deteriorated. MND affects the nerves, resulting in reduced communication between the brain and muscles that enable us to move, speak, swallow and breath.

There is no cure for MND and life expectancy is 2-3yrs on average. In people with MND, the motor neurones gradually degenerate and die, causing the muscles to weaken and waste.

MND is a life-limiting disease, and although MND progresses differently for each person, the average life expectancy is 2-3 years. There is currently no cure for MND, but symptoms can be managed to help improve quality-of-life and potentially extend life expectancy. MND can affect adults of any age, but is more common in people over 50 years. The life-time risk of developing MND is 1 in 300.

Around 90% of MND cases are known as sporadic MND, which means that there are no known other cases in the family. The cause of sporadic MND is unknown. The remaining 10% of cases are familial MND and are caused by an inherited genetic mutation. Every day, two Australians are diagnosed with MND and two die from the disease. There are currently over 2,100 Australians living with MND.

I first met Tasch and Matt back in 2008 in the military, where they served 39 years of combined service. While they found the strength to raise 5 sons while they served our country, Tasch has always been known for being a mum to so many others….me included!

Not just a proud family, the Loadsman’s have always formed close connections with the Communities they have lived in around Australia while serving our wonderful country and more recently running local businesses. Having given so much, I would like your help to get Tasch the supports she needs to enjoy some of life’s simple pleasures with her family at home with the time she has left.

Having now lost the use of 3 limbs and the ability to walk, Tasch has no way of navigating the stairs in her home, forcing her to live in the downstairs spare bedroom, isolated from her family. Tasch and Matt have lobbied NDIS (unsuccessfully to date) to install a lift in their home to enable Tasch to access the living areas of their two-story home.

While there is some exciting planning going into arranging a fundraising event to help raise the funds needed for a lift, your help with any donation you are able to spare will go a long way to helping get Tasch the supports she needs.

To increase awareness of MND and also share their journey, Tasch and Matt have created a faceboook page, You, Me & MND, which captures the highs, lows and raw emotion of what this awful disease does to the body. If nothing else, I implore you to follow their page and share it to increase awareness and funding for research to discover a cure.