“I don’t go out partying – I worry about whether I can wake up and walk.” 

For 20-year-old Aimee Segal, this captures what it’s like living with multiple sclerosis (MS) as a young woman. While most people her age are busy planning nights out, Aimee is focused on managing fatigue, avoiding heat, and listening to her body – every single day. 

Her journey with MS began long before her diagnosis. At just seven years old, Aimee fundraised for MS Queensland through a Swimathon, never imagining that years later, she’d be living with the very condition she was trying to help fight. 

On Christmas Eve 2020, when she was just 15, Aimee woke with numbness, slurred speech, and facial drooping. Hours later, she was diagnosed with MS. 

When Daryl Cullen first discovered MS Queensland, he was in a dark place, living “like a hermit” and experiencing up to 20 falls a day. But, with just one call, everything changed. 

 “All of a sudden, we had everyone on the phone, offering to do this and organise that. We’d gone through so many years without help that it was completely overwhelming.” Daryl said. 

 Having had his first stroke in 2014 and his second two days before Christmas 2017, Daryl was subsequently diagnosed with epilepsy and, later, Parkinson's.  

 “My wife, Cathy, has always been there for me. But I used to get into that dark area where I thought if I wasn't here, she wouldn't have to worry and look after me. I wanted to go for a long walk and never come back.”  

All it took to turn things around, Daryl says, was access to the right people with the right expertise.