Former rugby star Ed Slater has revealed the difficulty of telling his children he was suffering from motor neurone disease (MND) after he was diagnosed last month.
Last month, Slater announced he had been diagnosed with the degenerative disease and retired from rugby with immediate effect. He had made three appearances for Gloucester in the Premiership last season, with the most recent coming in January before he underwent six months of testing.
During an emotional interview with BBC Breakfast, an emotional Slater admitted it was very difficult to tell his three young children. He has two girls and a boy, and the 34-year-old praised how they took the news.
“They are young and that’s why I say we adapted it a little bit how we told them but kids are amazingly resilient and in that moment they may have found it difficult but once they realised nothing was changing immediately and it didn’t suddenly impact their lives drastically, they got on with things,” Slater said after fighting back tears. “In some ways that’s really refreshing for me.
“Just to be around them when you get the news, just to be around them is a great source of comfort.”
Slater also revealed he has begun the process of ‘voice banking’, which is when a person records a set list of phrases with their own voice while they still have the ability to do so. The recording is then converted to create a personal synthetic voice.
The former lock admitted he found the concept difficult to wrap his head around, but he is happy he has gone through with it before the disease begins to truly take hold. Slater added: “I sat down with my daughter actually and we read, or she listened to me reading.
“I don’t think she really understood what was going on but she was pleased to hear me reading a book to her so I’m pleased I’ve done that - it gives me a little bit of peace knowing that I’ve done that in the kind of best state I can really.”
Slater opened up about the ‘most emotional’ aspect of the ordeal, which was hearing about the realities of the disease. A statement from Gloucester insisted they were "entirely committed to supporting Ed, his wife Jo and his three children in whatever way required".
After departing the Leicester Tigers, Slater joined the Cherry and Whites in 2017 and made 78 appearances for the club in the Premiership. He spent seven years previously with the Tigers, where he won the Premiership title in 2012-13, playing 136 times as well as captaining the side over two seasons.
MND is a degenerative condition that affects nerves in the brain and spinal cord. Former rugby league player Rob Burrow, Scotland rugby union lock Doddie Weir and ex-Liverpool right-back Stephen Darby have all been diagnosed with MND in recent years and have been actively campaigning to raise awareness of the disease.
Weir’s charity His My Name'5 Doddie Foundation - a reference to his number five shirt number - said it recognised there was increased attention regarding head injuries and potential neurological disease, but that there was ‘currently not enough definitive research’ to draw conclusions regarding any links with MND.
Burrow, the former Leeds Rhinos scrum-half, was diagnosed in 2019 after he retired and was awarded an MBE in April for his services to both sport and the MND community. His former teammate and close friend Kevin Sinfield was awarded an OBE after raising millions for research into the condition.
