Troy remained positive until the end and definitely never lost his sense of humour but his decline due to MND was fairly rapid in the 20 months he had the disease.
He was fed through a PEG hole in his once mighty chest and had very little voluntary movement left including speech although he was a dab hand at his voice synthesizer which used eye tracking.
His wife Michele was his rock and took charge under very trying circumstances.
Troy and Michele had various carers and health professionals who visited and stayed in their home to do their thing and kept Troy fed and watered and his body moved around.

Troy Kerrigan's fundraising for MND Qld

The event that many of us attended was the MND Qld 2 km walk event at Main Beach on Sunday 21 March 2021 , see photos below

To aid Motor Neurone Disease (MND) research

This page was started to help our friend Troy Kerrigan raise funds for MND research.
The MND Qld Main Beach walk was a massive success with $38,000 in funds raised and Team T-Troy ending up second biggest fundraiser with $6,245 raised, thank you to the contributers!
The winner Steve E's Team E raised $11,900 congratulations to them.
Team T-Roy was the leading fundraiser for the postponed event in 2020 and at the March 2021 event they announced that Team T-Roy had the biggest number of registered walkers they had ever had at a walking event, Yay and thanks again for the people that came to walk (and talk) including from Brisbane (Derek Frail) and Sunny Coast (Paul Service “Moz”).

See details of the next MND Qld event online at their 2021 Event Calendar page MND.

If you do donate then all of the people who supported Troy and Michele, and the other folk with the merciless disease and those who will contract MND in the future, will all be very grateful, THANK YOU!

Why You?

Because you came to or where invited to my (Thatch's) 50th birthday in January 2014 and Troy and Michele were there. If you knew Troy you probably had a chat, if not you might have met them that day. The people at the party who knew Troy already and are local (like Adam McGuffie, Rob Pirie and Brad Kane and others) already know about this stuff.
You might also already know but haven't had a chance to donate, or you may have donated for a previous event.

Why Me?

I have been mates with Troy since Grade 1 at Surfers Paradise State School. I used to walk home from school with Troy, his brother Travis and my brother Simon. They had a little further to walk than us as they lived at Garfield Towers and we lived at 4 Markwell Avenue.

Also because I have had T1 diabetes for 25 years now, which is lame compared to MND, I know....BUT because diabetes is a common disease it is very well funded for research and support services. This makes my life with diabetes easy in many different ways including subsidies for the blood testing strips and different drugs that I use including the life saver insulin.
MND on the other hand is not well funded and the MND community have to fight for any government money and truthfully not much money goes into MND research and so people who have it have limited prospects for any good and effective treatments to help them fight the disease or even to be comfortable while they gradually lose the ability to control their muscles because the motor neurones in their brain, which control voluntary and some involuntary movement, gradually all stop working.

“If you have much, give of your wealth
If you have little, give of your heart.”
Rumi