Matt Nable has opened up about the death of his brother Aaron earlier this year from Motor Neurone Disease (MND).
The Australian actor, writer and former NRL player recalled that when his brother told him he was suffering from MND he knew it was “a hell of a disease” and “there was no cure.”
Ahead of Aaron’s diagnosis, Matt said the family had noticed Aaron was having “a little trouble with his speech.”
“I never thought it would be MND, I always thought MND started in the hand or the leg,” The Dry star told Jane Simpson, host of the Let’s Talk MND podcast.
Watch the video above.
READ MORE: British royal family unite for history-making traditional ceremony
“I didn’t know there’s a condition called Bulbar Onset MND, but it got to the point where his speech had become so bad and was undeciferable, almost.
“We knew something was wrong. He’d been to a speech therapist, she had seen the vacillations on his tongue and she couldn’t diagnose MND. She’s not qualified to. But she said, ‘You need to go and see a neurologist immediately.'”
He said the family were shocked and knew Aaron was “going to die.”
Aaron was “angry” following his diagnosis, Matt said, “and then very, very quickly turned to, ‘What can I do? It is what it is’.”
“And so he was really brave that way.”
The progression of Aaron’s illness was swift, and soon he was unable to talk at all. When asked how he was feeling about his situation, he would simply shrug.
“He was accepting really, really quick,” Matt said, adding that the family rallied around him, seeking help for Aaron’s condition.
READ MORE: ‘With the wrong person’: Dance that sparked Travolta’s tragic romance
“He was deteriorating really, really quickly.”
They prepared to care for Aaron once he was unable to use his limbs and hospital admissions.
“We didn’t know how long he had,” Matt said.
The family took the approach that whatever time Aaron had left, they were going to do everything they could to support him.
This included fun activities meant to make the most of the time he had left.
Matt says Aaron was “one of the biggest ‘scallywags’ to walk the Earth”.
”Aaron lived 46 years, and he packed them in,” Matt said.
READ MORE: Six years on, this is the only foundation I’ll buy
“He knew how to have a good time, he was hampered a little bit because of the disease when we took him places, but he enjoyed himself and we made sure of that.”
It wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows, Matt explained. With five siblings in the family, “when you step out you get told”, and Matt was quick to correct his brother’s behaviour as needed, as his Aaron would do right back to them.
“We’re proud of each other in many, many respects but if you misbehave … you’re gonna get told.”
Matt added that they had some “really good laughs while he was sick”, and this was particularly difficult during Aaron’s final months when he was bedridden.
“He went into hospital to have a PEG (a feeding tube) inserted in March, he came out, he went back into hospital in May 2023,” Matt said, due to a pout of aspirational pneumonia.
That time, they thought they were going to lose him but he recovered – only to be readmitted with the same condition in July.
Two days later he was discharged, but Matt says he was depleted and “never regained the strength” he lost in hospital that time and he was “pretty much done on his feet.”
Matt speculates Aaron’s past as an amateur Australian boxing champion contributed to his condition.
“There is damage. You’re not gonna walk out the same way you walked in, that won’t happen. It’s true of anyone at that level,” he said.
He said his brother was good at “accepting pain and adjusting to pain” due to his boxing history which helped as he endured the end stages of MND.
“That is one of the reasons he lived as long as he did with that disease, because of his ability to do those things,” Matt said.
Aaron Nable died on March 3, 2024, at the age of 46. He is survived by partner Aline and three children.
Since his brother’s death, Matt has been sharing his story to raise awareness of MND and to help raise funds for further research.
“It seem since Aaron got diagnosed with MND, I hear of people getting diagnosed all the time now,” Matt said.
Although it is classified as a rare disease based on its prevalence, it is estimated approximately 140,000 new cases are diagnosed worldwide each year, according to MND Australia.
In Australia, on average, each day two people die from MND and two people are diagnosed with MND.
“Aaron probably had MND three or four years before he was diagnosed,” Matt said, adding that the condition is difficult to diagnose in its early stages until symptoms become more obvious, as they did with his brother.
“We need something early to identify it.”
FOLLOW US ON WHATSAPP HERE: Stay across all the latest in celebrity, lifestyle and opinion via our WhatsApp channel. No comments, no algorithm and nobody can see your private details.